"Of course I've known him always, and that time he came out to America—when was it? four years ago—I saw him every day. I like him awfully and all that, but since you push me, you know," said Hugh Gosselin, "I'm bound to say that the first thing to mention in any description of him would be—if you wanted to be quite correct—that he's unmistakably selfish."
"I see—I see," Mrs. Gosselin unblushingly replied. "Of course I know what you mean," she added in a moment. "But is he any more so than any one else? Every one's unmistakably selfish."
"Every one but you and Mary," said the young man.
"And you, dear!" his mother smiled. "But a person may be kind, you know—mayn't he?—at the same time that he is selfish. There are different sorts."
"Different sorts of kindness?" Hugh Gosselin asked with a laugh; and the inquiry undertaken by his mother occupied them for the moment, demanding a subtlety of treatment from which they were not conscious of shrinking, of which rather they had an idea that they were perhaps exceptionally capable. They came back to the temperate view that Guy would never put himself out, would probably never do anything great, but might show himself all the same a delightful member of society. Yes, he was probably selfish, like other people; but unlike most of them he was, somehow, amiably, attachingly, sociably, almost lovably selfish. Without doing anything great he would yet be a great success—a big, pleasant, gossiping, lounging and, in its way doubtless very splendid, presence. He would have no ambition, and it was ambition that made selfishness ugly. Hugh and his mother were sure of this last point until Mary, before whom the discussion, when it reached this stage, happened to be carried on, checked them by asking whether that, on the contrary, were not just what was supposed to make it fine.
"Oh, he only wants to be comfortable," said her brother; "but he does want it!"
"There'll be a tremendous rush for him," Mrs. Gosselin prophesied to her son.
"Oh, he'll never marry. It will be too much trouble."
"It's done here without any trouble—for the men. One sees how long you've been out of the country."
"There was a girl in New York whom he might have married—he really liked her. But he wouldn't turn round for her."