“You have no ambition to be labelled ‘successful’?” said Image, who had been watching Paton as he spoke with his brilliant dark eyes. He found something that he liked in Paton, something which he vaguely missed in Gilbert and had always missed in his father before him.
“I don’t care for what is usually called success. Of course, many people say that because they know they won’t set the world on fire; and in spite of what Gilbert says, there are people who will never, with any amount of concentration, arrive; but, honestly, I don’t much care what my fellow-creatures think of me from the point of view of worldly success—I care very much otherwise; and I refuse to try and narrow myself down within the cramped little borders of success. I want room to develop, and I don’t want to be forced through the world’s mill and come out in a certain pattern.”
“And Gilbert doesn’t care a pin what people think of him ‘otherwise,’ but very much from the world’s stand-point, that’s the difference between you,” said Neeburg, helping himself to a quail en cocotte. “Now, I wonder which makes for happiness?”
“Oh, hold on!” cried Gilbert, laughing. “I like people all right. I protest, Neeburg.”
Neeburg smiled and shook his head. “Individuals are not really necessary to you,” persisted Neeburg.
“I won’t be made out a hard and miserable materialist just because I am honest enough to say I am ambitious.”
“My dear boy, there are many like you,” said Neeburg; “and ambition is by no means a bad thing. But with you the game is the thing. You are the type of man who lives and dies in harness. Men and women are pawns in the game of life to you. Once I thought as you do, but I was checked in time. And I found it wasn’t worth while. Bay-leaves may be bitter.”
“Well,” said Image; “to every man his own meat and his own poison. I’ve met a good many famous men in my time, and I can’t recall that any of them seemed to be particularly happy. To be great is to be lonely.... How delicious these strawberries are!... I think I’d rather be one of the common herd. The big man looks over the heads of others in a crowd, but he misses a lot of friendly glances and intimate whispers. I even like some of the jolly, familiar nudges one gets. No one would dare to nudge a great man.”
The others laughed, and Richards came in with the coffee.
“That reminds me of something that was said to me yesterday,” said Neeburg, “by an Anglo-Indian just come home. Was no end of a pot in India with absolute control over a big province. He was lamenting that it was horrible to find himself obliged to use buses and sit next to—just anybody!”