‘I daresay the effect would be the other way; but I might be a great deal more useful. I might teach in a poor school, or nurse the sick, or do something in some way to help my fellow-creatures. But sculling, and billiard-playing, and lawn-tennis—isn’t it a horridly empty life?’ ‘If there were not birds and butterflies, and many bright useless things, this world wouldn’t be half so beautiful as it is, Daphne.’ ‘Oh, now you are dropping into poetry, like Mr. Wegg, and I must go to bed,’ she retorted, with good-humoured petulance, cheered by his kindness. ‘Good-night, Edgar. You are always good to me. I shall always like you,’ she said gently. ‘Always like me. Yes, I hope so, Daphne. And do you still think that you would rather have had me than Gerald Goring for your brother?’ ‘Ten thousand times.’ ‘Yet he is a thoroughly amiable fellow, kind to everyone, generous to a fault.’ ‘A man with a million of money can’t be generous,’ answered Daphne; ‘he can never give anything that he wants for himself. Generosity means self-sacrifice, doesn’t it? It was generous of you to leave Hawksyard at six in the morning in order to teach me to scull.’ ‘I would do a great deal more than that to please you, and count it no sacrifice,’ said Edgar gravely. ‘I am sure you would,’ answered Daphne, with easy frankness. She was so thoroughly convinced that he would never leave off caring for Madoline, and would go down to his grave fondly faithful to his first misplaced affection, that no word or tone or look of his, however significant, suggested to her any other feeling on his part than an honest brotherly regard for herself. ‘Tell me what you think of Goring, now that you have had time to form an opinion about him.’ ‘I think that he is devoted to Lina, and that is all I want to know about him,’ answered Daphne decisively. ‘And do you think him worthy of her?’ ‘Oh, that is a wide question. There was never a man living except King Arthur that I should think absolutely worthy of my sister Madoline; but as he is lying in Glastonbury Abbey, I think Mr. Goring will do as well as anyone else. I hope Lina will govern him, for his own sake as well as hers.’ ‘You think him weak, then?’ ‘I think him self-indulgent; and a self-indulgent man is always a weak man, isn’t he? Look at Gladstone now, a man of surpassing energy, of illimitable industry, a man who will eat a snack of cold beef and drink a glass of cold water for his luncheon, at his desk, in the midst of his work, anyhow. Mr. Lampton, the new member who went up to see him, gave us a sketch of him in his study, living so simply and working so hard, so thoroughly homely and unaffected.’ ‘Daphne, I thought you were a hardened little Tory!’ ‘So I am; but I can admire the individual though I may detest his politics. That is the kind of man I should like Lina to marry: a man without a selfish thought, a man made of iron.’