“No, no, no; it helps one! It is like a tonic which braces one up for the ordinary routine.”
“It is like a sleeping draught—agreeable for the time, but mischievous and relaxing in its after effects.”
Grey eyes met blue with a flash of defiance, then softened into smiles.
“It depends upon disposition,” said Mollie firmly. “We find nothing relaxing about it, but a great deal of innocent amusement. When we are out shopping and want something badly and can’t have it, because it costs five shillings and we only possess half a crown, Ruth says to me, ‘Let’s pretend a letter arrived by the afternoon post to say someone had left us a million pounds! What would you do first of all?’ Then we can talk about it for the rest of the walk, and decide what dresses we would have, and where we should live, and the papers we should have in the entertaining room, and the furniture in our bedrooms; and we choose things out of all the shop-windows as we pass, and decide where they shall go. I’ve furnished my house so often that I really know the rooms, and love them into the bargain.”
“And when you go back into the real house you are discontented and amazed at the contrast.”
“Oh dear, no! That would be silly. I am so refreshed by my visit to the castle that I can laugh over the shabbiness which annoyed me before. You don’t think it wrong to read an interesting book? Very well, then, why is it wrong to indulge in a little fiction on one’s own account?”
“Wrong is rather a strong word, perhaps, but there is a great difference between the two. In reading a book you forget yourself in your interest about others; in dreams—excuse me—you think constantly of yourself, and play the part of hero. It is a habit which is inclined to make one consider oneself the most interesting person on earth.”
“Well, so you are! To yourself, I mean; you know you are!” cried Mollie, with an innocent naïveté which made Mr Melland laugh again. It was seldom, indeed, that anyone was honest enough to confess to self-love, and her candour seemed infectious, for, on the verge of contradicting her assertion with regard to himself, a sudden recollection rushed through him of his own thoughts, doubts, conflicts, and final determination of the past twenty-four hours. Did not every one of these concern himself as a primary, if not an only, motive? Was he not exercised, first of all, by a sense of his own importance, so that the wishes of a dying man availed nothing against the preservation of his own dignity? The laugh gave place to a frown as he replied—
“If it is so it ought certainly to be discouraged. One ought not deliberately to pamper selfishness.”
Mollie’s eyes dropped to her plate, and her lips pouted in an involuntary grimace.