"It is an honest and an easy way of earning a living, at all events."
"Of earning a living? And are you going to content yourself with 'earning your living,' Mr. Joyce?"
"Oh, Lady Caroline, why should I do anything else? The desire for making money has gone from me altogether with the receipt and perusal of that letter. She was the spur that urged me on; my dreams of fame and wealth and position were for her, not for myself; and now----"
"And now you are going to abandon it all--do you mean to tell me that? That you, a young man possessing intellect, and energy, and industry, with a career before you, are about to abandon that career, and to condemn yourself to vegetation--sheer and simple vegetation, mind, not life--merely because you have been grossly deceived by a woman, who, your common sense ought to have told you, has been playing you false for months, and who, as she herself confesses, has all her life rated the worthiness of people as to what they were worth in money? You are clearly not in your right mind, Mr. Joyce. I am surprised at you!"
"What would you have me do, Lady Caroline? You sneer at the notion of my remaining with Lord Hetherington. Surely you would not have me go to Berlin?"
"I never sneer at anything, my dear Mr. Joyce; sneering shows very bad breeding. I say distinctly that I think you would be mad to fritter away your days in your present position. Nor do I think, under circumstances, you ought to go to Berlin. It would have done very well as a stepping-stone had things turned out differently; but now you would be always drawing odious comparisons between your solitary lot and the 'what might have been,' as Owen Meredith so sweetly puts it."
"Where, then, shall I go?"
"To London. Where else should any one go with a desire to make a mark in the world, and energy and determination to aid him in accomplishing his purpose? And this is your case. Ah, you may shake your head, but I tell you it is. You think differently just now, but when once you are there, 'in among the throngs of men,' you will acknowledge it. Why, when you were there, at the outset of your career, utterly friendless and alone, as you have told me, you found friends and work; and now that you are known, and by a certain few appreciated, do you think it will be otherwise?"
"You are marvellously inspiriting, Lady Caroline, and I can never be sufficiently grateful for the advice you have given me--better still, for the manner in which you have given it. But suppose I do go to London, what--in the cant phrase of the day--what am I to 'go in for'?"
"Newspaper-writing--what do they call it?--journalism, at first; the profession in which you were doing so well when you came here. That, if I mistake not, will in due course lead to something else, about which we will talk at some future time."