As Maurice took his seat beside Ronald, the latter, hastily sweeping his handkerchief across his eyes, said with a vehement intonation,—
"I have come to a sudden determination! I am going back to America. The trip is nothing,—ten days over and ten back,—a mere trifle! I can spend a couple of months with my parents and be back in time for autumn work. Instead of sending my picture, which is nearly completed, I will present it in person."
Maurice sighed as he answered, "They will be proud of your work! Happy are they who have work to do, and who do it faithfully!"
"That is a sentiment worthy of an American," rejoined Ronald; "indeed, you have unconsciously stolen it from one of our most distinguished American writers, who says, 'To have something to do and to do it is the best appointment for us all.'[A] The extent to which I have insensibly Americanized you is very evident. A thought has just struck me: you are weary and melancholy, and seem to grow much paler and thinner every day. It will revive and strengthen you to accompany me. Come, let us go together!"
"Let us fly to the moon!" answered Maurice, half scornfully. "Ronald, why do you always forget that although we have lived precisely the same number of years, and I may be said to have lived so much longer than you, if we count time by sorrows that make long the days,—though we have both passed our twenty-first anniversary, you, as an American, have obtained your majority, and are a free agent, while the law of France renders me still a minor for four years? You know I cannot stir without my father's consent; and, of course, that is unattainable."
"Unattainable if you choose to imagine that it is, and will not seek for it," answered Ronald, rebukingly. "The wisest poet that ever penned his inspiration, says,—
'Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt!'
Do not let your traitorous doubts frighten you from the trial."
Maurice smiled away his rising irritability, and replied, "I think, Ronald, your mind is so full of poetic arrows that one could not take a step, or lift a finger, or draw a breath, without your being able to hit him with a verse."