“You can, indeed,” Ludovic assented laughingly, careful to smooth over any irritation his companion’s tactless observation might have caused. “It is that which, if I may say so, has set me to wondering.”
The Count was quite blandly good-humoured now. “Most of us are agreed,” he said, “that life is to be enjoyed while we have the power. The great mistake lies in our trying to enjoy it in the same way, as though the summa voluptas had been arrived at. The wise man is he who refuses to follow the palling pleasure which satisfies, and in the end dissatisfies, the mob, but maps out a course of pleasure for himself. And, to do that, he must not be afraid of singularity. His method will excite the wonder, more or less respectful, of all but a few who will recognize that his folly is founded on wisdom. The pleasures of life are limited; they may be counted on the fingers; the ways of pursuing them are practically unlimited. Each generation discovers and adopts new ones; here and there a man anticipates the wisdom of his successors, that is all.”
“You seem,” Ludovic observed, veiling with a smile a slight feeling of contempt at his host’s tone, “you seem to suggest that the most successful pursuit of pleasure is proof of the highest wisdom.”
“Is it not?” There was an arrogant confidence in the rejoinder.
“I should be sorry to think so.”
The Count’s smile was irritatingly pleasant. “And yet I wager that in your heart you think so.”
“Indeed?”
“I could give my reasons, but forbear to do so. At least I give you credit for self-deception. And, if I might offer a piece of advice, as an older man who has seen much of the world, I would suggest that the sooner you recognize the wisdom of setting the world’s enjoyment before you in the best light the less regret will you have to look forward to. The maze of pleasure has so many paths and windings, each delightful enough when you turn into it, but getting more and more dreary as you go on, till it ends in blankness and disgust. A few paths there are which take some trouble to find and are less inviting than the others, but their interest, on the contrary, increases as we follow them.”
“I quite agree with you,” Ludovic returned dryly. “It was of such I was thinking. The paths of real pleasure, to which I hardly supposed you meant to allude.”
The two men were antagonistic in their natures, and both realized it. But each kept outwardly unruffled.