Dennis was preparing to reply, when Ellis reappeared to summon us to lunch. We followed him in gladly enough, for it was past our usual hour and we were hungry; and the conversation naturally taking a lighter turn, I have nothing further to record until we reassembled in the afternoon.
When we reassembled for coffee on the loggia after lunch, I did not suppose we should continue the morning's discussion. The conversation had been turning mostly on climbing, and other such topics, and finally had died away into a long silence, which, for my own part, I felt no particular inclination to break. We had let down an awning to shelter us from the sun, where it began to shine in upon us, so that it was still cool and pleasant where we sat; and so delightful did I feel the situation to be, that I was almost vexed to be challenged to renew our interrupted debate. The challenge, rather to my surprise, came from Audubon, who suddenly said to me, _à propos_ of nothing, in a tone at once ironic and genial:
"Well, I thought you talked very well this morning."
"Really!" I rejoined, "I imagined you were thinking it all great nonsense."
"So no doubt it was," he replied; "still, it amused me to hear you."
"I am glad of that, at any rate; I was afraid perhaps you were bored."
"Not at all. Of course, I couldn't fail to see that you weren't arriving anywhere. But that I never expected. In fact, what amuses me most about you is, the way in which you continue to hope that you're going to get at some result."
"I don't see that you did. You showed, or tried to show, that we must believe in Good; but you made no attempt to discover what Good is."
"No," I admitted; "that, of course, is much more difficult."
"Exactly; but it is the only point of importance."
"Well," I said, "perhaps if we were to try, we should find that we can come to some agreement even about that."
"Because people are so radically different, that there is no common ground to build upon."
"But is the difference really so radical as all that?"
"Yes," he said, "I think so. At any rate, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I make you an offer. Here are eight of us, all Englishmen, all contemporaries, all brought up more or less in the same way. And I venture to say that, if you will raise the question, you won't find, even among ourselves, with all the chances in your favour, any substantial agreement about what we think good."