Читать книгу The Passionate Quest онлайн

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Philip sighed gently.

"And this youth," he murmured,—"I beg his pardon, I forgot that he was twenty-four to-day—has been our companion for eleven years!"

Matthew raised himself a little, sitting with his knees drawn up and his hands clasped around them. His face, with its massive chin and broad forehead, had its good points, but his eyes were too close together and his lips acquisitive. The dominant and redeeming quality of his expression was its forcefulness.

"Look here," he said, "you two seem to think yourselves very superior because you read poetry and go to concerts whilst I learn shorthand and typewriting and attend technical schools. Yet, if either of you were to ask yourselves a plain question and answer it truthfully, you would discover that you wanted pretty well what I want out of life. Philip wants to write stories. Well, the measure of his success will be how much, if anything, they'll pay him for them. Art has an exact and commercial value, and that value can be written down in pounds, shillings and pence. And Rosina here wants beautiful clothes, silks to drape about her body, pearls to hang upon her neck, and carte blanche at Cook's to buy tickets for every corner of the world. What does that all mean except pounds, shillings and pence? I go the short way about it, and you two prefer the twisting paths. You'll probably get into a maze, you won't know where you are, you'll confuse the end with the means, and you'll forget what you started out for. That's why I like my way best. I'm not out to pull any stars down from heaven, or to waste time dreaming about them. I'm out for a big banking account, and I'll decide afterwards what I'll do with the money, when I've got it."