"I see you are too serious."
"I am only sorrowful—sorrowful at quitting you."
"Why should you do it, I repeat?"
"I am never merry—happiness is not my portion," faltered Antonino, not knowing what answer to make.
"That's nothing. Better now than later! At your age, unhappiness is easily borne—it is only what the sporting gentlemen call a preliminary canter. Wait till you come to the actual race!"
"I am not fit to dwell with others—with grave, earnest men; I am too nervous and impressionable."
"Because you come of an excitable race, and your childhood was passed in too deep poverty. You will grow out of all that, gradually. Stay here; oh, keep with me, for I have need of you and you require a companion-soul, soothing like mine. The kind of disappointment you experience is not to be cured by change of place. You carry it with you, and distance increases and strengthens it, and whenever you meet the object again to whom was due the vexation you will perceive that you went on the journey for no good."
Antonino looked at the speaker as one regards the mind-reader who has answered to the point. Clemenceau fixed him with his serene, unvarying eyes, and continued, in an emotionless voice, like a statue, speaking:
"You are in love—and you love my wife."
Antonino started away and involuntarily lifted his hands in a position of defense. Averting his eyes and unclenching his fists, he muttered sullenly: