No more was said on the subject till the end of dinner.  His mother then began, as if there had been no interval since the morning.  “It disturbs me, Clym, to find that you have come home with such thoughts as those.  I hadn’t the least idea that you meant to go backward in the world by your own free choice.  Of course, I have always supposed you were going to push straight on, as other men do—­all who deserve the name—­when they have been put in a good way of doing well.”

“I cannot help it,” said Clym, in a troubled tone.  “Mother, I hate the flashy business.  Talk about men who deserve the name, can any man deserving the name waste his time in that effeminate way, when he sees half the world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle to and teach them how to breast the misery they are born to?  I get up every morning and see the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain, as St. Paul says, and yet there am I, trafficking in glittering splendours with wealthy women and titled libertines, and pandering to the meanest vanities—­I, who have health and strength enough for anything.  I have been troubled in my mind about it all the year, and the end is that I cannot do it any more.”

“Why can’t you do it as well as others?”

“I don’t know, except that there are many things other people care for which I don’t; and that’s partly why I think I ought to do this.  For one thing, my body does not require much of me.  I cannot enjoy delicacies; good things are wasted upon me.  Well, I ought to turn that defect to advantage, and by being able to do without what other people require I can spend what such things cost upon anybody else.”

Now, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very instincts from the woman before him, could not fail to awaken a reciprocity in her through her feelings, if not by arguments, disguise it as she might for his good.  She spoke with less assurance.  “And yet you might have been a wealthy man if you had only persevered.  Manager to that large diamond establishment—­what better can a man wish for?  What a post of trust and respect!  I suppose you will be like your father; like him, you are getting weary of doing well.”

“No,” said her son, “I am not weary of that, though I am weary of what you mean by it.  Mother, what is doing well?”

Mrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be content with ready definitions, and, like the “What is wisdom?” of Plato’s Socrates, and the “What is truth?” of Pontius Pilate, Yeobright’s burning question received no answer.

The silence was broken by the clash of the garden gate, a tap at the door, and its opening.  Christian Cantle appeared in the room in his Sunday clothes.

It was the custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story before absolutely entering the house, so as to be well in for the body of the narrative by the time visitor and visited stood face to face.  Christian had been saying to them while the door was leaving its latch, “To think that I, who go from home but once in a while, and hardly then, should have been there this morning!”