“I’m not without ambition,” said he.
“I know that. What form does your ambition take? A colonial judgeship, after ten years of idleness at the bar? A success in literature that shall compensate you for the favourable criticisms of double that period? The ownership of the Derby winner? An American heiress, moving in the best society in Monte Carlo? A co-respondency in brackets with a Countess? All these are the legitimate aspirations of the modern man.”
“Co-respondency as a career has, no doubt, much to recommend it to some tastes,” said Harold. “It appears to me, however, that it would be easy for an indiscreet advocate to over-estimate its practical value.”
“You haven’t been thinking about it?”
“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.”