"Why should it do anybody harm, Dad?"
"Oh, well—if pleasure were put in the first place, for the whole of a lifetime! That's what you see all round you, among people of our sort. It would have been more of a danger for B than for Caroline. But B is all right now. She'll make a good loving wife and mother. She'll have a good time, but she won't put having a good time first."
"I should like you to expound that for me a little, Daddy; for my good, you know."
"Well, I don't know that I'm the best person to expound it to you, except perhaps that I've done it a bit too much myself. You see when you have enough money to do pretty well what you like, you do rather get into the way of gratifying yourself at every turn—or trying to. Even the good things in life—love is the best of them all—you're apt to think more of yourself than of other people—even of the very people you love."
She thought this might be the beginning of a confidence, and listened eagerly for more.
"I'm not sure that the best thing for a man isn't to have something stiff to do," he went on. "I never have had. I've been too lucky."
"You've made all of us happy, darling."
"Well, that's something, isn't it, if I have? You've all made me happy too. Best not to be always looking out for happiness for yourself—much less pleasure. Some clever fellow said once that happiness only came when you weren't looking for it."
"I think the best thing is to do what you can to make other people happy. I don't mean in a priggish sort of way—setting yourself out to do it—but because you love them and it comes natural to you to want to."