'That, I repeat, belongs to your every-day history. No one can answer that question but yourself. Your next duty is just to determine what your next duty is.—Is there nothing you neglect? Is there nothing you know you ought not to do?—You would know your duty, if you thought in earnest about it, and were not ambitious of great things.'
'Ah then,' responded Lady Georgina, with an abandoning sigh, 'I suppose it is something very commonplace, which will make life more dreary than ever. That cannot help me.'
'It will, if it be as dreary as reading the newspapers to an old deaf aunt. It will soon lead you to something more. Your duty will begin to comfort you at once, but will at length open the unknown fountain of life in your heart.'
Lady Georgina lifted up her head in despair, looked at Falconer through eyes full of tears, and said vehemently,
'Mr. Falconer, you can have no conception how wretched a life like mine is. And the futility of everything is embittered by the consciousness that it is from no superiority to such things that I do not care for them.'
'It is from superiority to such things that you do not care for them. You were not made for such things. They cannot fill your heart. It has whole regions with which they have no relation.'
'The very thought of music makes me feel ill. I used to be passionately fond of it.'
'I presume you got so far in it that you asked, “Is there nothing more?” Concluding there was nothing more, and yet needing more, you turned from it with disappointment?'
'It is the same,' she went on hurriedly, 'with painting, modelling, reading—whatever I have tried. I am sick of them all. They do nothing for me.'
'How can you enjoy music, Lady Georgina, if you are not in harmony with the heart and source of music?'