' But if everybody is average, why does A single out B?' asked Charlie. ' Why not C or D, up to Z?'
Sybil finished her pudding.
' I don't know,' she said. ' Probably because B comes first—is next to A. About money—of course it will not give you content. Content is a matter of temperament. But it will give you the power to gratify any taste; and, considering how many beautiful things there are in the world, it is a confession of idiocy or of want of taste, which is the same thing, not to be able to be absorbed in some one of them.'
' That is quite true,' said Mrs. Brancepeth; ' and it matters hardly at all what one is absorbed in so long as one is absorbed.
Charlie responded to this.
' And one's power of absorption depends almost entirely on health,' said he.
The evening post came in on this, and not long after Charlie went upstairs to answer certain letters which had come for him, leaving the other two together. Since the arrival of the post, Sybil had become very silent and preoccupied; one letter, in fact, she read three times over, with silent frownings between each perusal. At length she rose, took a turn or two up the room, and spoke.
' I have had disquieting news,' she said; ' and I want advice.'
' Do tell me, dear,' said Mrs. Brancepeth. ' I will do my best.'
' I don't know if you know Mr. Bilton,' she said. ' I have just heard from him; he is starting to-morrow for Davos.'
' Charlie has mentioned him,' said the other.
' You know who he is, then,' said Sybil. ' Shortly before I left England he proposed to me. I refused him. I don't want him to come here; but how is it possible for me to stop him?'
