"Nothing more than the wish to have one. You are growing tired of
your bargain. The game wearies you. That is foolish. Do you want to
try a new part?"

The question was like a mirror upon which one comes suddenly in a
half-lighted. room, A quick illumination falls on it, and the
passer-by is startled by the look of his own face.

"You are right," said Hermas. "I am tired. We have been going on
stupidly in this house, as if nothing were possible but what my
father had done before me. There is nothing original in being rich,
and well fed, and well dressed. Thousands of men have tried it, and
have not been very well satisfied. Let us do something new. Let us
make a mark in the world."

"It is well said," nodded the old man; "you are speaking again like
a man after my own heart. There is no folly but the loss of an
opportunity to enjoy a new sensation."

From that day Hermas seemed to be possessed with a perpetual haste,
an uneasiness that left him no repose. The summit of life had been
attained, the highest possible point of felicity. Henceforward the
course could only be at a level--perhaps downward. It might be
brief; at the best it could not be very long. It was madness to lose
a day, an hour. That would be the only fatal mistake: to forfeit
anything of the bargain that he had made. He would have it, and hold
it, and enjoy it all to the full. The world might have nothing
better to give than it had already given; but surely it had many
things that were new to bestow upon him, and Marcion should help him
to find them.