“And when the portrait is finished she, no doubt, would leave out me,” he added, with charming candour.
“Quite so,” said Merivale; “and since I, not being an uncontrolled despot, could not ‘leave out’ people, which I suppose is a soft way of saying terminate their existence, I went away instead to a place where they were naturally left out, where for me their existence was terminated. It is all part of the simplifying process.”
They had established themselves in the verandah again, where a silent-footed man was laying the table for dinner; and it struck Evelyn for the moment as an inconsistency that the tablecloth should be so fine and the silver so resplendent.
“But in your simplification,” said Evelyn, indicating the table, “you don’t leave out that sort of thing.”
“No, because if I once opened the question of whether I should live on the bare necessities of life, or allow myself, so to speak, a little dripping on my bread, the rest of my life would be spent in settling infinitesimal points which I really don’t think much matter. I could no doubt sell my silver and realize a few hundred pounds, and give that away. But I don’t think it matters much.”
“All the same, it is inconsistent.”
“In details that does not seem to me to matter either,” said Merivale. “For instance, I don’t eat meat partly because I think that it is better not to take life if you can avoid it. But when a midge settles on my hand and bites me, if possible I kill it.”
“Well, anyhow your inconsistencies make up a very charming whole,” said the other, looking round. “It is all charming.”
“I’m glad, and you think you can pass a day or two here without missing the—the complications you live among? I wish Philip could have come down, too; but he is buried in work, it appears, and we know how his leisure is occupied just now.”