"
"Yes, I was very, very young!" sighed Barnabas.
"But you were happy--your head was high and your eye bright with
confident hope and purpose."
"Yes, I was very confident, John."
"And therefore--greatly successful, sir. Your desire was to cut a
figure in the Fashionable World. Well, to-day you have your
wish--to-day you are famous, and yet--"
"Well, John?"
"Sir, to-day I fear you are--not happy."
"No, I'm not happy," sighed Barnabas, "for oh! John Peterby, what
shall it profit a man though he gain the whole world, and lose his
soul!"
"Ah, sir--you mean--?"
"I mean--the Lady Cleone, John. Losing her, I lose all, and success
is worse than failure."
"But, sir,--must you lose her?"
"I fear so. Who am I that she should stoop to me among so many? Who
am I to expect so great happiness?"
"Sir," said Peterby, shaking his head, "I have never known you doubt
yourself or fortune till now!"
"It never occurred to me, John."
"And because of this unshaken confidence in yourself you won the
steeplechase, sir--unaided and alone you won for yourself a place in
the most exclusive circles in the World of Fashion--without friends
or influence you achieved the impossible, because you never doubted.
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