"It's like this," said Peter, disturbed and apologetic, "we don't want to lead what's called respectable lives, Thomas and I. We don't want to be well-off—to live with well-off people. We—we can't, d'you see. It's not the way we're made. We don't belong. We're meant just to drift about the bottom, like this, and pick up a living anyhow."
"The boy's a fool," remarked Lord Evelyn, throwing back his head and staring at the roof.
Peter, who hated to wound, went on, "If we could share the life of any rich person, it would be you."
"Good Lord, I'm not rich. Wish I were. Rich!"
"Oh, but you are, you know. You're what we mean by rich.... And it's not only that. There's Denis and Lucy too. We've parted ways, and I do think it's best we shouldn't meet much. What's the good of beginning again to want things one can't have? I might, you know; and it would hurt. I don't now. I've given it all up. I don't want money; I don't want Denis's affection ... or Lucy ... or any of the things I have wanted, and that I've lost. I'm happy without them; without anything but what one finds to play with here as one goes along. One finds good things, you know—friends, and sunshine, and beauty, and enough minestra to go on with, and sheltered places on the shore to boil one's kettle in. I'm happy. Wouldn't it be madness to leave it and go out and begin having and wanting things again?"
Lord Evelyn had been listening with a curious expression of comprehension struggling with impatience.
"And the boy?" he said. "D'you suppose there'll never come a time when you want for the boy more than you can give him here, in these dirty little towns you like so much?"
"Oh," said Peter, "how can one look ahead? Depend on it, if Thomas is one of the people who are born to have things, he will have them. And if he's not, he won't, whatever I try to get for him. He's only one and a half now; so at least there's time before we need think of that. He's happy at present with what he's got."
"And is it your purpose, then, to spend all your life—anyhow, many years—in these parts, selling needlework?"
"I've no purpose," said Peter. "I must see what turns up. No, I daresay I shall try England again some time. But, wherever I am, I think I know now what is the happy way to live, for people like me. We're no use, you see, people like me; we make a poor job at the game, and we keep failing and coming bad croppers and getting hurt and in general making a mess of things. But at least we can be happy. We can't make our lives sublime, and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of time—oh, I don't think I want to, in the least—but we can make a fairly good time for ourselves and a few other people out of the things we have. That's what we're doing, Thomas and I. And it's good enough."