Guy looked away from the fields. He resented a little his friend's air of superiority.
"There's only a year's difference in our ages!" he remarked.
Henri de Bergillac smiled—this time more expressively than ever, and held out his hands.
"I speak of experience, not years," he said. "You have lived for twenty years in a very delightful spot no doubt, but away from everything which makes life endurable, possible even, for the child of the cities. I have lived for twenty-one years mostly in Paris. Ah, the difference!"
Guy shrugged his shoulders, and leaned back in his chair.
"Well," he said briefly, "tastes differ. I've seen quite all I want to of Paris for the rest of my life. Give me a fine June morning in the country, and a tramp round the farm, or an early morning start in September walking down the partridges, or a gray day in November with a good gee underneath, plenty of grass ahead, and hounds talking. Good God, I wish I were back in England."
Henri smiled and caressed his upper lip, where symptoms of a moustache were beginning to appear.
"My dear Guy," he said, "you speak crudely because you do not understand. You know of Paris only its grosser side. How can one learn more when he cannot even speak its language? You know the Paris of the tourist. The real magic of my beautiful city has never entered into your heart. Your little dabble in its vices and frivolities must not count to you as anything final. The joy of Paris to one who understands is the exquisite refinement, the unsurpassed culture, of its abysmal wickedness."
"The devil!" Guy exclaimed. "Have you found out all that for yourself?"
Henri was slightly annoyed. He was always annoyed when he was not taken seriously.