"Yes. Therein, too, you proved yourself a true prophet. And now tell me something about yourself."
"Were you—angry with me when you heard what I had done, Laurence?" she said, raising her eyes full to his.
"Angry? No. Why should I be? Your life is your own, though, as a rule, sacrificing ones' self to save somebody else, as your aunt rather gave me to understand was the case here, is lamentably apt to turn out a case of throwing away one's life with both hands. It is too much like cutting one's own throat to save somebody else from being hanged."
"And is that your way of wishing me well, Laurence?" she said reproachfully.
"No. I wish you nothing but well. It would be futile to say 'happiness,' I suppose."
"The happiness of doing one's duty is a hard kind of happiness, after all," she said, with a sad little smile.
"Yes. An excellent copybook maxim, but for all purposes of real life—bosh. Am I not in my own person a living instance to that effect? As soon as I pitched 'duty' to the dogs, why then, and only then, did I begin to travel in the contrary direction to those sagacious animals myself—which, of course, is simply appalling morality, but—it's life. Well, child, make the best of your life, and prove a shining exception to the dismal rule."
"Do you remember our talk on board the dear old Persian? Yes, we had so many, you were going to say; but I mean our first one, the first serious one—that night, leaning over the side, I asked you: 'Shall I make a success of life?' Do you remember your answer?"
"As well as though it were yesterday. I replied that the chances were pretty even, inclining, if anything, to the negative. Well, and was I right?"
Lilith turned away her head. He could see that the tears were not far away. Her lips were quivering.