“Of course, half the pleasure lies in not being certain whether you are going to hit or not. If I always hit I don’t think I should care about it—not so much, at any rate. It’s like gambling with an enormous proportion of chances in your favour if you play well.”
Miss Wrexham took almost as much interest in the proceedings as the shooters themselves, and she showed no wish to go back until they all went home. Lord Ramsden met with greater success towards the end of the afternoon, and they all returned in excellent spirits.
Tom and Miss Wrexham were walking a little in front of the others, and in answer to some questions of hers, he was saying what he was going to do when he left Cambridge.
“It must be such a blessing,” she said, “to know for certain, as you do, exactly what you want to be, and to be able to be it. Most people never know what they want to be. Bob is going into the army simply because he can’t think of anything else.”
“The worst of most professions is that they are only ways of making money,” said Tom. “Artists and clergymen are the only people who do what they have a passion for. No one can have a passion for cross-examining witnesses.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that!” objected Maud. “My mother—do you know my mother?—has a passion, literally a passion, for making arrangements. Really her chief joy in life is arranging things quite irrespective of what the arrangements are; but I think people like her are mostly women.”
“What is your passion?” asked Tom.
“Making people like me, especially if they hate me naturally. I wouldn’t say that it is my vocation, because lots of people detest me. Don’t trouble to say you don’t believe me. I am sure that sort of speech would come very badly from you.”
“Do you mean that I’ve got such awkward manners, or that I am naturally honest?”
“I mean that when a man doesn’t owe a compliment, it is no use his trying to pay one.”