Harold.
    »Not at all. It is an immense advantage to know your own will, when you
always mean to have it.«
    »But suppose I couldn't get it, in spite of meaning?« said Harold, with a
beaming inquiry in his eyes.
    »O then,« said Esther, turning her head aside, carelessly, as if she were
considering the distant birch-stems, »you would bear it quite easily, as you did
your not getting into parliament. You would know you could get it another time -
or get something else as good.«
    »The fact is,« said Harold, moving on a little, as if he did not want to be
quite overtaken by the others, »you consider me a fat, fatuous, self-satisfied
fellow.«
    »O there are degrees,« said Esther, with a silvery laugh; »you have just as
much of those qualities as is becoming. There are different styles. You are
perfect in your own.«
    »But you prefer another style, I suspect. A more submissive, tearful, devout
worshipper, who would offer his incense with more trembling.«
    »You are quite mistaken,« said Esther, still lightly. »I find I am very
wayward. When anything is offered to me, it seems that I prize it less, and
don't want to have it.«
    Here was a very baulking answer, but in spite of it Harold could not help
believing that Esther was very far from objecting to the sort of incense he had
been offering just then.
    »I have often read that that is in human nature,« she went on, »yet it takes
me by surprise in myself. I suppose,« she added, smiling, »I didn't think of
myself as human nature.«
    »I don't confess to the same waywardness,« said Harold. »I am very fond of
things that I can get. And I never longed much for anything out of my reach.
Whatever I feel sure of getting I like all the better. I think half those
priggish maxims about human nature in the lump are no more to be relied on than
universal remedies. There are different sorts of human nature. Some are given to
discontent and longing, others to securing and enjoying. And let me tell you,
the discontented longing style is unpleasant to live with.«
    Harold nodded with a meaning smile at Esther.
    »O, I assure you I have abjured all admiration for it,« she said, smiling