of contradicting her, since the Socratic mood soon wore off, they did not attempt to find out the Hellenic equivalents for those amazing doctrines. [Pg 70] She was markedly Socratic this afternoon, when the whole party were having tea on the lawn. Esther and Bertie had been down to bathe after lunch, and since everybody was going to bathe again after tea, they had left their clothes behind different rocky screens above the probable high-water level on the beach, and were clad in bathing-dress, moderately dried in the sun, with dressing-gowns above. Berts had nothing in the shape of what is called foot-gear on his feet, since it was simpler to walk up barefoot, and he was wriggling his toes, one after the other, in order to divest them of an excess of sand. "But pain and pleasure are so closely conjoined," said Nadine, in answer to an exclamation of his concerning stepping in a gorse-bush. "It hurts you to have a prickle in your foot, but the pleasure of taking it out compensates for the pain!" "That's Socratic," said Hugh, "when they took off his chains just before they hemlocked him. You didn't think of that, Nadine." [Pg 71] [Pg 71] "I didn't claim to, but it is quite true. There is actual pleasure in the cessation of pain. If you are unhappy and the cause of your unhappiness is removed, your happiness is largely derived from the fact that you were unhappy. For instance, did you ever have a fish-bone stick in your throat, Hugh?" "As a matter of fact, never," said Hugh. "But as I am meant to say 'yes,' I will." "And did you cough?" "Violently," said Hugh. "Upon which the fish-bone returned to your mouth?" "No," said Hugh. "I swallowed it. It never returned at all." "It does not matter which way it went," said Nadine; "but your feeling of pleasure at its going was dependent on the pain which its sticking gave you." "Is that all?" said Hugh. "Does it not seem to you to be proved?"
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