“I gather that you are much interested in flowers,” said Christian, to make conversation.
The other laughed briefly, as he threw the stuff aside, then sighed a little. “Too much so,” he answered. “I wish I had the courage to give it up altogether. It murders my work. I spend sometimes whole hours in my greenhouses when I ought to be doing other things. The worst of it is that I realize perfectly the criminal waste of time—and still I persist in it. There is something quite mysterious in plants—especially if you have grown them yourself. You can go and stand among them by the hour, and look from one to another, with your mind entirely closed to thoughts of any description. I used to assume that this mental rest had a recuperative value, but as I get older I suspect that it is a kind of lethargy instead—a mere blankness that can grow upon one. I find myself, for example, going incessantly to see certain pans of my own hybridized seedlings—and staring aimlessly at them till I get quite empty-headed. Now, I am too busy a man to be able to afford that.”
“But if you get pleasure from it,” expostulated Christian, gently.
“We have no right to think of our pleasure,” Emanuel asserted with decision, “while any duty remains unperformed. And rightly considered, duty is pleasure, the very highest and noblest pleasure. The trouble is that even while our minds quite recognize this, our senses play us tricks. For example, when I saw how much time I was wasting on flowers, I tried to turn the impulse into a useful channel. The blossoms of fruit trees, for instance; the growth and flowering and seeding processes of melons and broad-beans and potatoes and so on, are just as interesting and worthy of study, and they mean value to humanity into the bargain. So I said I would concentrate my attention upon them, instead—but there was some perverse element in me somewhere; I couldn’t do it. The mere knowledge that these excellent vegetables were of practical utility threw me off altogether. They bored me—so I went shamefacedly back to the roses and fuchsias and dahlias.”
“They have wonderful dahlias at Caermere,” interposed Christian. “I walked for a long time among them with Lady Cressage, and she told me all their names. Poor lady, she is very sad, in spite of the flowers. I—I think I should like to say it to you—I find myself very sorry for her. And—such a bewildering number of things are to be done for me—is there not something that can be done for her?”
Emanuel walked slowly on in silence for some moments, regarding his companion’s profile out of the corner of his eye, his own face showing signs of preoccupation meantime. When at last he spoke, the question seemed to have lost itself in convolution of his thoughts.
“Considering their northern exposure,” he said meditatively, “they grow an extraordinary amount of fruit at Caermere.”