‘Well, I haven’t reached the point of wanting that consolation yet, thank heaven.’
‘Perhaps some of us would rather have the consolation than give thanks that we didn’t need it,’ I said.
‘I can’t say I understand you, but I know you mean something disagreeable. Polly, I think we had better go home to breakfast.’
Mary turned, and we all followed. Little was said on the way home. We divided in the hall—the ladies to breakfast, and we to our work.
We had not spoken for an hour, when Charley broke the silence.
‘What a brute I am, Wilfrid!’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t I be as good as Jesus Christ? It seems always as if a man might. But just look at me! Because I was miserable myself, I went and made my poor little sister twice as miserable as she was before. She’ll never get over what I said this morning.’
‘It was foolish of you, Charley.’
‘It was brutal. I am the most selfish creature in the world—always taken up with myself. I do believe there is a devil, after all. I am a devil. And the universal self is the devil. If there were such a thing as a self always giving itself away—that self would be God.’
‘Something very like the God of Christianity, I think.’
‘If it were so, there would be a chance for us. We might then one day give the finishing blow to the devil in us. But no: he does all for his own glory.’