"Yes. Whether for Duty—or only for Self."
A slight pause followed. "If only one's duties weren't so often just the very things one most dislikes!"
A look in her companion's face somehow recalled her father. He asked simply—
"Don't you think that the less one minds about one's own likings, the better? And after all,—obedience against the grain is always grander than doing what one wishes. That may land one on a mountain-top."
"Yes—I see. I suppose—" and she smiled—"when you gave up your climb that day, for the sake of Mr. Ramsay, you really got to a higher peak than if you had gone up the Grand Muveran."
He laughed.
"Very kind of you to say so. But that was a simple necessity. Nothing else could have been possible."
"And since then you've never been able to go, because you have been so busy, teaching me to climb." That some self-denial might be involved in this had not earlier occurred to her. She looked at him gratefully. "But anyhow—you have the work in life that you like. You are not one of those people who seem put down in just the wrong place. You wouldn't wish to change!"
"It is the work I have to do. It was not my choice."
"But how—Was it settled for you?"