Florimel made a neat little yawn over her work. Clementina’s hands rested a moment in her lap, and she looked thoughtful. But she resumed her work, and said no more. Malcolm began to read again. Presently Clementina interrupted him. She had not been listening. “Why should a man want to be better than his neighbours, any more than to be richer?” she said, as if uttering her thoughts aloud. “Why, indeed,” responded Malcolm, “except he wants to become a hypocrite?” “Then, why do you talk for duty against generosity?” “Oh!” said Malcolm, for a moment perplexed. He did not at once catch the relation of her ideas. “Does a man ever do his duty,” he rejoined at length, “in order to be better than his neighbours.” If he does, he won’t do it long. A man does his duty because he must. He has no choice but do it.” “If a man has no choice, how is it that so many men choose to do wrong?” asked Clementina. “In virtue of being slaves and stealing the choice,” replied Malcolm. “You are playing with words,” said Clementina. “If I am, at least I am not playing with things,” returned Malcolm. “If you like it better, my lady, I will say that, in declaring he has no choice, the man with all his soul chooses the good, recognizing it as the very necessity of his nature.” “If I know in myself that I have a choice, all you say goes for nothing,” persisted Clementina. “I am not at all sure I would not do wrong for the sake of another. The more one preferred what was right, the greater would be the sacrifice.” “If it was for the grandeur of it, my lady, that would be for the man’s own sake, not his friend’s.” “Leave that out then,” said Clementina. “The more a man loved another--say a woman, as here in the story--then it seems to me, the more willing would he be that she should continue to suffer rather than cease by wrong. Think, my lady: the essence of wrong is injustice: to help another by wrong is to do injustice to somebody you do not know well enough to love for the sake of one you do know well enough to love. What honest man could think of that twice? The woman capable of accepting such a sacrifice would be contemptible.” “She need not know of it.” “He would know that she needed but to know of it to despise him.” “Then might it not be noble in him to consent for her sake to be contemptible in her eyes?” “If no others were concerned. And then there would be no injustice, therefore nothing wrong, and nothing contemptible.” “Might not what he did be wrong in the abstract, without having reference to any person?” “There is no wrong man can do but is a thwarting of the living Right. Surely you believe, my lady, that there is a living Power of right, whose justice is the soul of our justice, who _will_ have right done, and causes even our own souls to take up arms against us when we do wrong.” “In plain language, I suppose you mean--Do I believe in a God?”