"Why make my task more difficult than it is? I wish to be honest. I should speak just the same, believe me, if your father were present. Is not our first duty towards ourselves? The rest is vague and uncertain, the development of our own faculties is, after all, that which is most sure.... I'm uttering no paradox when I say that we serve others best by considering our own interests. Let us suppose that you sacrifice yourself, that you dedicate your life to your father, that you do all that conventional morality says you should do. You look after his house, you sing at his concerts, you give music lessons. Ten, fifteen years pass, and then, remembering what might have been, but what is no longer possible, you forgive him, and he, overcome with remorse for the wrong he did you, sinks into the grave broken-hearted." "I should at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I had done my duty." "Words, Evelyn, words. Take your life into your keeping, go abroad and study, come back a great success." "He would never forgive me." "You do not think so.... Evelyn, you do not believe that." "But even if I wished to leave home, I could not. Where should I get the money? You have not thought what it would cost." "Have you forgotten the knight that came to release the sleeping beauty of the woods from her bondage? Fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds would be ample. I can easily afford it." "But I cannot afford to accept it. Father would not allow me." "You can pay it all back." "Yes, I could do that. But why don't you offer to help father instead?" "Why are you what you are? Why am I interested in you?" "If I went abroad to study, I should not see you again for a long while--two years." "I could go to Paris."