prefer something a shade more—what shall we call it?" "Don't care a hang," muttered Stabb. "A trifle more in the grand manner, perhaps, Cromlech. And she hadn't anything like the complexion. I knew at once that it couldn't be the Marchesa. Do you bathe to-morrow morning?" "And get my head broken?" "Just stand still, and let them throw themselves against you, Cromlech. Roger!—Oh, he's gone to bed; stupid thing to do—that! Cromlech, old chap, I'm enjoying myself immensely."[Pg 89] [Pg 89] He just touched his old friend's shoulder as he passed by: the caress was almost imperceptible. Stabb turned his broad red face round to him and laughed ponderously. "Oh, and you understand!" cried Lynborough. "I have never myself objected to a bit of fun with the girls," said Stabb. Lynborough sank into a chair murmuring delightedly, "You're priceless, Cromlech!"[Pg 90] [Pg 90] Chapter Six EXERCISE BEFORE BREAKFAST "Life—" (The extract is from Lynborough's diary, dated this same 14th of June)—"may be considered as a process (Cromlech's view, conducting to the tomb)—a program (as, I am persuaded, Roger conceives it, marking off each stage thereof with a duly guaranteed stamp of performance)—or as a progress—in which light I myself prefer to envisage it. Process—program—progress; the words, with my above-avowed preference, sound unimpeachably orthodox. Once I had a Bishop ancestor. He crops out. "Yet I don't mean what he does. I don't[Pg 91] believe in growing better in the common sense—that is, in an increasing power to resist what tempts you, to refrain from doing what you want. That ideal seems to me, more and more, to start from the wrong end. No man refrains from doing what he wants to do. In the end the contradiction—the illogicality—is complete. You learn to want more wisely—that's all. Train desire, for you can never chain it. [Pg 91] "I'm engaged here and now on what is to all appearance the most trivial of businesses. I play the spiteful boy—she is an obstinate peevish girl.
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