"Or proves the non-existence of one," added Paul.
"It is surprising," she continued in the same tone, "how you always manage to spoil the light side of life by treating it seriously. Do you ever allow yourself a happy, irresponsible moment?"
"Perhaps I haven't seen as much of the light side as you have," he returned, quite unmoved. "And it is always easier to play our tragedy than our comedy; the mise en scène is better adapted to begin with. That is why the mediocre writer generally ends his book badly; he gets his effect much more easily than by ending it well."
"What has made you so cynical, I wonder?" she asked lazily.
"Principally, the happiness of the vulgar," returned Paul promptly. "It is not our own unhappiness that makes us cynical, but the badly done happiness of others. Quite an ordinary person may be able to bear misfortune more or less nobly, but it takes a dash of genius to be happy without being aggressive over it."
"I can't imagine your taking the trouble to be aggressive over anything," observed Katharine. "That is probably why you prefer to remain sombre, whether the occasion demands it or not. It is very prosaic to have to acknowledge that a man's most characteristic pose is merely due to his laziness. On the whole, I am rather glad I am quite an ordinary person; I would much sooner be happy, even if it does make me vulgar."
"Happiness is like wine," said Paul, without heeding her. "It demoralises you at the time, and it leaves you flat afterwards. The most difficult thing in life is to know how to take our happiness when it comes."
"It is more difficult," murmured Katharine, "to know how to do without it when it doesn't come."
They landed at St. Cloud, and walked up through the little village and into the park where the ruins of the palace were. They had strayed away from their fellow passengers by this time, and the complete solitude of the place and its atmosphere of decay affected them both in the same way, and they gradually dropped into silence. He was the first to break the pause.
"Don't you think it is time we brought this farce to an end?" he asked with a carelessness of manner that was obviously assumed.