said the other.

"A coward! It sounds nice, doesn't it? I am a shirker, a man who would
be drummed out of any regiment."

"Rot!" said Wratislaw. "In that sort of thing you have the courage of
your kind. You are the wrong sort of breed for common shirking cowards.
Why, man, you might get the Victoria Cross ten times over with ease, as
far as that goes. Only you wouldn't, for you are something much more
subtle and recondite than a coward."

It was Lewis's turn for the request. "I am prepared to hear," he said.

"A fool! An arrant, extraordinary fool! A fool of quality and parts, a
fool who is the best fellow in the world and who has every virtue a man
can wish, but at the same time a conspicuous monument of folly. And it
is this that I have come to speak about."

Lewis sat back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the glowing coal.

"I want you to make it all plain," he said slowly. "I know it all
already; I have got the dull, dead consciousness of it in my heart, but
I want to hear it put into words." And he set his lips like a man in
pain.

"It is hard," said Wratislaw, "devilish hard, but I've got to try." He
knocked out the ashes from his pipe and leaned forward.

"What would you call the highest happiness, Lewie?" he asked.

"The sense of competence," was the answer, given without hesitation.

"Right. And what do we mean by competence? Not success! God knows it
is something very different from success! Any fool may be successful,
if the gods wish to hurt him. Competence means that splendid joy in
your own powers and the approval of your own heart, which great men feel
always and lesser men now and again at favoured intervals. There are a
certain number of things in the world to be done, and we have got to do
them. We may fail--it doesn't in the least matter. We may get killed
in the attempt--it matters still less. The things may not altogether be
worth doing--it is of very little importance. It is ourselves we have
got to judge by. If we are playing our part well, and know it, then we
can thank God and go on. That is what I call happiness."

"And I," said Lewis.

"And how are you to get happiness? Not by thinking about it. The great
things of the world have all been done by men who didn't stop to reflect
on them. If a man comes to a halt and analyses his motives and
distrusts the value of the thing he strives for, then the odds are that
his halt is final. You strive to strive and not to attain. A man mus