"How so?"
"Because the greatest pleasure in life is work, and when perfection renders work unnecessary, life becomes a lotos-eating existence."
"Well surely that is a very pleasant thing."
"To the few Yes, to the many No! Some men need constant excitement to make them enjoy life. I can quite understand Xerxes offering a reward to the man who could invent a new pleasure, for if Xerxes had not attained the perfection of debauchery, he would not have found existence a bore."
"You can hardly call such an ignoble height perfection," said Lady Errington quietly. "I should call it satiety."
"No doubt you are right. But what does it matter what we call it? the thing is the same."
"That sounds as if you spoke from experience, and at your age that can hardly be the case."
"I remember," observed Eustace a trifle satirically, "that a short time ago you said you measured youth by experience not by age. It is the same with me, I am only thirty eight years of age, yet in that short time I have exhausted all that life has to give."
"Surely not!"
Eustace Gartney laughed in a dreary, hopeless manner that showed how truly he spoke.