room, stopped with the word
that ended this tirade, and gave it out roundly.

"The thing is," said Robert, "can you do without _them_--all these men
and women who won't have you on your own terms? They constitute all the
men and women in the world for you and me, for we don't care for the
other sort. Can you do without them? I couldn't." He said the "I
couldn't" first as if looking back to the time when he had broken loose
from the family tradition; he repeated it more steadfastly, and it
seemed to press pathetically into present and future--"I couldn't." The
book that he had been idly swinging above his pillow was an old missal,
and he lowered it now to shield his face somewhat from his brother's
downward gaze.

"No, you couldn't," repeated Alec soberly. He stood with his hands in
his pockets, looking down half pityingly, perhaps with a touch of
superiority. "You couldn't; but I can, and I'll stand by my colours. I
should be a coward if I didn't."

Robert coloured under his look, under his words, so he turned away and
stood by the window. After a minute Robert spoke.

"You haven't given me the slightest reason for your repeated assertion
that you would be a coward."

"Yes, I have. That's just what I've been saying."

"You have only explained that you think so the more strongly for all
opposition, and that may not be rational. Other men can do this work and
be thankful to get it; you can do higher work." His words were
constrainedly patient, but they only raised clamour.

"I don't know what you profess and call yourself! What should I change
for? To pamper your pride and mine--is that a worthy end? To find
something easier and more agreeable--is that manly, when this has been
put into my hand? How do I know I could do anything better? I know I can
do this well. As for these fine folks you've been talking of, I'll see
they get good food, wherever I am; and that's not as easy as you think,
nor as often done; and there's not one of them that would do all their
grand employments if they weren't catered for; and as for the other men
that would do it" (he was incoherent in his heat), "they do it pretty
badly, some of them, just because they're coarse in the grain; and you
tell me it'll make them coarser; well then, I, who can do it without
getting coarse, will do it, till men and women stop eating butcher's
meat. You'd think it more pious if I put my religion into being a
missionary to the Chinese, or into writing tr