"The one post promises security for life, a fixed salary...."
"And is so eminently your line, Cyprian."
"At the moment," said Cyprian, "a secure haven and a tranquil time to brood upon my good fortune in it are the last attractions the world can offer me. I feel restless. I know I am probably being a fool but, since my mother died, there is nothing that need prevent me from being a fool if I so desire."
Mrs. Carmichael had a feeling that any young man who rounded off his sentence with, "if I so desire" at this stage of his career, was intended by Heaven for a University donship and not the vicissitudes of a miner's existence. She was quite right.
"The Company which has offered you the post of Secretarial Manager and What-Not of its—er—machinations," went on Mr. Carmichael, "will, in all likelihood, burst before the year's end and leave you stranded. The Burmese mines are overdone and I hardly believe in this new discovery and your avaricious expectations. What is promised? Rubies?"
"I got such a pretty aquamarine straight from the Mogok mines once," murmured his wife, "through a friend who ..."
"You won't find any rubies, ten to one," warned Robin.
"But I may find something else again which is of even more importance to me," said Cyprian.
Neither of his companions asked what that was. He went on slowly: "Some force outside myself seems to be urging me away from England for the present. I fear the facetious would describe me as a quitter, but, for certain natures, it is always safest to quit ... temptations. I have never dared to do anything else myself, and a superficial peace at Oxford just now would multiply mine unbelievably, though I am sensible of the honour done me by their offer of the appointment."
"You are only twenty-eight, are you not?"