“You see, I haven’t yet met the countess.”
“What, then, in heaven’s name do you hope for?”
“Well, I would say Parliament, if I could be sure that that came within the rather narrow restrictions which you assigned to my reply. You said ‘in heaven’s name.’”
“Parliament! Parliament! Great Powers! is it so bad as that with you?”
“I don’t say that it is. I may be able to get over this ambition as I’ve got over others—the stroke oar in the Eight, for instance, the soul of Sarasate, the heart of Miss Polly Floss of the Music Halls. Up to the present, however, I have shown no sign of parting with the surviving ambition of many ambitions.”
“I don’t say that you’re a fool,” said the man called Edmund. He did not speak until the long pause, filled up by the great moan of the Atlantic in the distance and the hollow fitful plunge of the waters upon the rocks of the Irish shore, had become awkwardly long. “I can’t say that you’re a fool.”
“That’s very good of you, old chap.”
“No; I can’t conscientiously say that you’re a fool.”
“Again? This is becoming cloying. If I don’t mistake, you yourself do a little in the line I suggest.”
“What would be wisdom—comparative wisdom—on my part, might be idiotcy—”