“No, indeed; but I am not criticising him. I am proving him to be right by my own example. He thought everybody could conquer fortune as he himself had done; but everybody cannot do that, any more than everybody can write a great poem. You require special qualities, which he had. Some go down altogether in the battle and are never more heard of; some do, what perhaps he would have thought worse, like me.” “Why like you? Have you done badly? I have not heard so,” cried Katherine, with a quick impulse of interest, which she showed in spite of herself. “I have done,” he said, “neither well nor ill. I am of that company that Dante was so contemptuous about, don’t you remember? I think he is too hard upon them, _che senza infamia e senza gloria vive_. Don’t you think there is a little excuse--a little pardon for them, Miss Tredgold? The poor fellows aim at the best. They know it when they see it; they put out their hands to it, but cannot grasp it. And then what should the alternative be?” “It is a difficult question,” said Katherine with a smile, not knowing what he would be at. He meant something, it was evident, beyond the mere words. His eyes had a strained look of emotion, and there was a slight quiver under the line of his moustache. She had not been used to discussions of this kind. The metaphysics of life had little place in the doctor’s busy mind, and still less in the noisy talk of the Sir Charles Somers of existence. She did not feel herself quite equal to the emergency. “I presume that a man who could not get the best, as you say, would have to content himself with the best he could get. At least, that is how it would come out in housekeeping, which is my sole science, you know,” she said, with a faint laugh. “Yes,” he said, almost eagerly. “That is perhaps natural. But you don’t know how a man despises himself for it. Having once known a better way, to fall back upon something that is second or third best, that has been my way. I have conquered nothing. I have made no fortune or career. I have got along. A man would feel less ashamed of himself if he had made some great downfall--if he had come to grief once and for all. To win or lose, that’s the only worthy alternative. But we nobodies do neither--we don’t win, oh, far from it! and haven’t the heart to lose--altogether----” What did he mean? To do Katherine justice, she had not the smallest idea. She kept her eyes upon him with a little curiosity, a little interest. Her sense of embarrassment and consciousness had entirely passed away. “You are surely much too severe a judge,” she said. “I never heard that to come to grief, as you say, was a desirable end. If one cannot win, one would at least be glad to retire decently--to make a retreat with honour, not to fling up everything. You might live then to fight another day, which is a thing commended in the finest poetry,” she added with a laugh.