"If you chance on ill-luck," he ran on, arguing aloud with himself concerning the possible consequences of betraying Mr. Hubbard's trust, "you'll be glad you were happy while it was possible; and if the fates make you the one person in a million, by letting you get through life decently, you surely can't think it would be better to spend it moping until you are incapable of enjoying anything." The form of his speech was still that of one talking simply from the point of view of his hearer. It did not for a moment occur to Damaris Wainwright that in all he had said there had been anything but a perfectly disinterested discussion of the principles involved in her own questions and in her own perplexities. Yet, as a matter of fact, his words were but the surface indications of the conflict going on in his own mind. He was arguing down his disinclination to accept the obvious and dishonorable means of escaping from an unpleasant position; he was fighting against the better instincts of his nature, and trying to convince himself that the easy course was the one to be chosen, the one logically following from the conclusions forced upon him by his study of life. "But duty!" she interposed, rather timidly, as he paused. She was confused by his persistent ignoring of all the standards by which she was accustomed to judge, and she threw out the question as one in desperation brings forward a last argument, half foreseeing that it will be useless. "Duty!" he echoed, fiercely. "Life is an outrage, and what duty can take precedence of righting it as far as we can. That old fool of a Ruskin--I beg your pardon, Miss Wainwright, if you're fond of him--did manage to say a sensible thing when he told a boarding-school full of girls that their first duty was to want to dance. To allow that there is any duty above making the best of life is a species of moral suicide." She looked at him with an expression of profoundest feeling. She was too little used to arguments of this sort to discern that the whole matter was involved in the definition one gave to the phrase "The best of life," and that to assume that this meant mere selfish or sensuous enjoyment, was to beg the whole question. She was carried away by the dramatic fashion in which he ended, dashing down his palette and throwing himself into a chair.