“I feel it so strange that English people should be philosophers,” she said. Giles saw that she intended them all to talk.
“Do you think it too reasonable a pursuit for such an irrational people as we are?” he asked.
“Yes. Just that. You are a people who improvise as you go. To philosophize would have been, I should imagine, against the genius of your race.”
“Oh, we’re not all of us, all the time, lurching along on mere instinct. We do, some of us,” said Giles, “stop, now and then, and reflect.”
“But lurching becomes you,” André at this put in. “You lurch, as a rule, in the right direction—for yourselves. Look at your Empire,” he smiled, taking a slice of baba, “all made up of lurches and success.”
“We planned to have India, you will remember,” Alix, at this, suddenly remarked. “We planned and even plotted it. It was only as they worked as best they could against our plots that the English won it, not intending to have an Indian Empire at all.—I always like that. That always seems to me just. And history is so seldom just.”
Giles felt that the eyes of her mother and compatriots were turned upon her, as she made this statement, with a certain astonishment. “And I think it is rather noble of those who do reflect,” Alix went on, calmly, knowing evidently what she thought of the question in its national and its personal applications; “for the others, those who lurch and make the Empire, can pay so little attention to you. It is very disinterested.”
“We practise philosophy for our own satisfaction, what?” Giles laughed, though aware of ambiguous cross-currents. “I’m glad you find us noble.”
“She is quite right, mon ami,” André said cordially. “You are a race of adventurers. And it is as adventurous to reflect among a people indifferent to thought as it is to set forth with a bundle on your back and conquer a continent by chance. You are a people, in other words, who do not need to see your goal.”
“But you prefer your own rationality,” said Giles.