‘You think I’ve justified myself,’ he cried to them. ‘I haven’t really. It’s cant, though not the worst kind, but still it’s cant. It’s weak sentimentality merely turned topsy-turvy. I’ve realised that when I’ve heard other fellows explaining away their slackness. It’s nearly as bad as being one of those creatures who, when they get put into the dock, begin snivelling about their War record. It’s not the first time that boys have left school to be shot at, have lost their brothers and friends, have been jilted, have been swindled. If a man’s got guts, he ought to be able to win through. That’s what you ought to tell me. I know it. I know this disillusion or cynicism or bitterness or whatever it is is the new cant, an attitude, weakness trying to disguise itself. And that makes it worse for me. I say I ought to be able to win through, and then I ask myself “win through to what?” I don’t like being in this pit, but there’s no motive-power to lift me out, or you might say there isn’t even any “out.” You can put it another way. I asked Waverton what he thought was the great snag in life, the catch in it. I asked that because I was curious. I wondered if his idea would agree with mine. But it didn’t. Mine’s this. If you approach life in the old noble-silly fashion, then it’ll simply cheat you and bump you badly. If you don’t, if you crawl into it with no grand illusions, then you’ll come to terms with it, of course, and live easily, but you’ll be nothing but a pig, and it’s not worth having at all on those terms.’
‘That’s not unlike mine, you know,’ said Philip. ‘Only I feel I could patch up your trouble, that a compromise is possible.’
‘And that’s what I felt about yours,’ cried Penderel. ‘I felt it would be possible to find a safe seat somewhere between the horns of your dilemma, but not between those of mine. Of course, if you’re a born pig, you don’t feel it, but if you’ve merely turned piggy, it hurts for a time. I’m hoping it’ll stop hurting soon. I’ve turned piggy, of course.’
‘You’re a raging idealist,’ Margaret smiled at him, ‘or you wouldn’t talk like that.’
‘That’s it,’ said Sir William, complacent now. ‘He wants the moon.’
‘No, that’s wrong,’ replied Penderel, eagerly. ‘That’s something quite different. I know people like that, but if you think I am, you’ve missed the point.’
‘I don’t know, Penderel,’ said Philip. ‘Surely it’s really a matter of wanting better bread than can be made of wheat, as someone once said of somebody.’
‘No, it isn’t.’ Penderel was very emphatic. ‘It’s worse than that. It’s finding that bread made out of wheat isn’t worth eating.’
‘That’s the same thing,’ Philip told him.
‘I don’t mean it to be.’ He leaned forward on his elbow and frowned. ‘Wait a minute and I’ll tell you what I mean.’