“I don’t understand your egoism,” said Geraldine. “I always thought altruism was undisputed.”
“My altruism is universal egoism,” he said. “If each person on this ship were trained to take perfect care of himself there’d be no need of a sacrifice in case of shipwreck.”
Mr. Freneau drew his chair nearer. He had been neglected pretty thoroughly by Mrs. and Miss Wells, and he did not particularly object. It was a tiresome job to pilot four women and a vagrant man through the cathedrals and art galleries of Europe. Mr. Richard was a welcome assistant, who had suddenly relieved the tension and had given the guide a needed rest. As the journey neared its end he began to recover and, humanly enough, had a desire to talk and be heard.
“That’s very well put, Mr. Richard,” he nodded approval. “We’re all selfish naturally, and it’s a really decent creed; only everybody calls it bad names but goes on practising it just the same. But isn’t it often cruel? The essence of Christianity, I take it, is sympathy, brotherly love. Egoism, as you call it, fights all that, doesn’t it? It is isolated.”
The other two ladies drew into the circle. Richard became silent.
“I’m asking you, Mr. Richard,” Mr. Freneau inflated his lungs and began a dissertation in ethics. At the end he appealed to Richard for confirmation of his analysis.
“I’m awfully sorry,” Richard arose and worried through his excuses. “I have no doubt you are quite right. I have never studied such things. I only know my own life and I know very little about that. I have no really fixed opinions on anything. Who could have? But, excuse me, I must go. Walter and I are playing a most exciting tournament of cribbage. Hey, Walt, old chap; what d’y’ say? Another bout, eh?”
Walter sprang to attention eagerly. He understood the code. It meant cribbage, of which he was desperately fond—Richard had found that out early—but it meant also a gill of precious cognac.
“Sure!” he said, and dragged himself out of his chair and followed.
Mr. Freneau talked on, but his argument smelled of the recitation-room. It was as far from life and living as a college debate. Mrs. Wells watched her boy as he went off so willingly with Richard, and wondered, a little enviously, what charm the piper played. As they made their way forward in the dusk she heard her boy laugh at a remark of Richard’s, the first laugh from him in many a day.