EGERTON.—“I have spoken.”
HARLEY (with interest).—“And well, I hope?”
EGERTON.—“With effect, I suppose, for I have been loudly cheered, which does not always happen to me.”
HARLEY.—“And that gave you pleasure?”
EGERTON (after a moment’s thought).—“No, not the least.”
HARLEY.—“What, then, attaches you so much to this life,—constant drudgery, constant warfare, the more pleasurable faculties dormant, all the harsher ones aroused, if even its rewards (and I take the best of those to be applause) do not please you?”
EGERTON.—“What? Custom.”
HARLEY.—“Martyr.”
EGERTON.—“You say it: but turn to yourself; you have decided, then, to leave England next week?”
HARLEY (moodily).—“Yes. This life in a capital, where all are so active, myself so objectless, preys on me like a low fever. Nothing here amuses me, nothing interests, nothing comforts and consoles. But I am resolved, before it be too late, to make one great struggle out of the Past, and into the natural world of men. In a word, I have resolved to marry.”