, and we returned without
coming further south. It is wrong, however, to say that I saw anything; my mind
was in far too crude a state to direct my eyes to any purpose. I stared about me
a good deal, and got some notions of topography, and there the matter ended for
the time.«
    »The benefit came with subsequent reflection, no doubt,« said Mrs.
Lessingham, who found one of her greatest pleasures in listening to the talk of
young men with brains. Whenever it was possible, she gathered such individuals
about her and encouraged them to discourse of themselves, generally quite as
much to their satisfaction as to her own. Already she had invited with some
success the confidence of Mr. Clifford Marsh, who proved interesting, but not
unfathomable; he belonged to a class with which she was tolerably familiar.
Reuben Elgar, she perceived at once, was not without characteristics linking him
to that same group of the new generation, but it seemed probable that its
confines were too narrow for him. There was comparatively little affectation in
his manner, and none in his aspect; his voice rang with a sincerity which
claimed serious audience, and his eyes had something more than surface
gleamings. Possibly he belonged to the unclassed and the unclassable, in which
case the interest attaching to him was of the highest kind.
    »Subsequent reflection,« returned Elgar, »has, at all events, enabled me to
see myself as I then was; and I suppose self-knowledge is the best result of
travel.«
    »If one agrees that self-knowledge is ever a good at all,« said the
speculative lady, with her impartial smile.
    »To be sure.« Elgar looked keenly at her, probing the significance of the
remark. »The happy human being will make each stage of his journey a phase of
more or less sensual enjoyment, delightful at the time and valuable in memory.
The excursion will be his life in little. I envy him, but I can't imitate him.«
    »Why envy him?« asked Eleanor.
    »Because he is happy; surely a sufficient ground.«
    »Yet you give the preference to self-knowledge.«
    »Yes, I do. Because in that direction my own nature tends to develop itself.
But I envy every lower thing in creation. I won't pretend to say how it is with
other people who are forced along an upward path; in my own case every step is
made with a groan, and why shouldn't I confess it?«
