me at least enjoy. That is wisdom! Your creed is--But I will not
imitate your rudeness!" and Godolphin laughed.

"Certainly," replied Radclyffe, "you do your best to enjoy yourself. You
live well and fare sumptuously: your house is superb, your villa
enchanting. Lady Erpingham is the handsomest woman of her time: and, as
if that were not enough, half the fine women in London admit you at their
feet. Yet you are not happy."

"Ay: but who is?" cried Godolphin, energetically.

"I am," said Radclyffe, drily.

"You!--humph!"

"You disbelieve me."

"I have no right to do so: but are you not ambitious? And is not ambition
full of anxiety, care,--mortification at defeat, disappointment in
success? Does not the very word ambition--that is, a desire to be
something you are not--prove you discontented with what you are?"

"You speak of a vulgar ambition," said Radclyffe.

"Most august sage!--and what species of ambition is yours?"

"Not that which you describe. You speak of the ambition for self; my
ambition is singular--it is the ambition for others. Some years ago I
chanced to form an object in what I considered the welfare of my race.
You smile. Nay, I boast no virtue in my dreams; but philanthropy was my