“You like to come back,” he said. “You like to sit here, perhaps, and think. Well, I do not envy you. You sat here and thought, years ago. You built a house of dreams here, unless you lied. You come here now, perhaps, to compare it with the house of gewgaws which you have built, and in which you dwell.”
Saton did not for a moment shrink. In his heart he felt that it was one of his inspired moments. There was confidence alike in his bearing and in his gentle reply.
“Why not?” he asked. “Why should you take it for granted that there is so much amiss in my life, that I have fallen so far away from those dreams? It may not be so,” he continued. “Remember that the man who lives, and comes a little nearer toward knowledge, has nothing to be ashamed of. It is the man who lives, and eats and drinks and sleeps, and knows no more when his head presses the pillow at night than when the sun woke him in the morning, it is that man who is ignoble. You have spoken of the past,” he added, turning face to face with Rochester. “Once more I will remind you of your own words. ‘The only crime in life is failure. If the crash comes, and the pieces lie around you, swim out to sea too far, and sink beneath the waves forever!’ Wasn’t that your advice? Not your exact words, perhaps, but wasn’t that what you told the boy who sat here and dreamed?”
Rochester shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“Youth,” he said, “may be forgiven much. Manhood must accept its own responsibilities.”
Saton smiled grimly.
“Always the same,” he said. “All the time you play with the truth, Rochester, as though it were a glass ball committed into your keeping, and yours alone. Don’t you know that the one inspired period of life is youth—youth before it is sullied with experience, youth which knows everything, fears nothing—youth which has the eyes of the clairvoyant?”
Rochester frowned.
“Your tongue goes glibly to-night,” he remarked. “Talk to the shadows, my friend. Lady Marrabel and I are going.”