in length till
another gate was reached; but during the mile the wanderer could
go off on either side, and lose himself on the grass among the
beech-trees. It was a favourite haunt with Mr Whittlestaff. Here he
was wont to sit and read his Horace, and think of the affairs of the
world as Horace depicted them. Many a morsel of wisdom he had here
made his own, and had then endeavoured to think whether the wisdom
had in truth been taken home by the poet to his own bosom, or had
only been a glitter of the intellect, never appropriated for any
useful purpose. "'Gemmas, marmor, ebur,'" he had said. "'Sunt qui non
habeant; est qui non curat habere.' I suppose he did care for jewels,
marble, and ivory, as much as any one. 'Me lentus Glycerae torret
amor meae.' I don't suppose he ever loved her really, or any other
girl." Thus he would think over his Horace, always having the volume
in his pocket.

Now he went there. But when he had sat himself down in a spot to
which he was accustomed, he had no need to take out his Horace. His
own thoughts came to him free enough without any need of his looking
for them to poetry. After all, was not Mrs Baggett's teaching a
damnable philosophy? Let the man be the master, and let him get
everything he can for himself, and enjoy to the best of his ability
all that he can get. That was the lesson as taught by her. But as he
sat alone there beneath the trees, he told himself that no teaching
was more damnable. Of course it was the teaching by which the world
was kept going in its present course; but when divested of its
plumage was it not absolutely the philosophy of selfishness? Because
he was a man, and as a man had power and money and capacity to do the
things after which his heart lusted, he was to do them for his own
gratification, let the consequences be what they might to one whom
he told himself that he loved! Did the lessons of Mrs Baggett run
smoothly with those of Jesus Christ?

Then within his own mind he again took Mrs Baggett's side of the
question. How mean a creature must he not become, if he were now to
surrender this girl whom he was anxious to make his wife! He knew of
himself that in such a matter he was more sensitive than others. He
could not let her go, and then walk forth as though little or nothing
were the matter with him. Now for the second time in his life he had
essayed to marry. And now for the second time all the world would
know that he had been accepted and then