“Yes, that’s what Serge says,” he cried, “and that it is a great and noble thing for a man to be ready to die for his country if there is any need.”
“But it is pleasanter to live, my boy,” said the visitor, smiling, “and to be happy with those we love, with those whom we are ready to defend against the enemy. You must be a soldier, then—a defender of your land.”
“No,” said the boy, quickly, and he gave his head a quick shake. “It can never be.”
“Why?”
“Because my father says ‘no.’”
The visitor raised his brows a little, and then, leaning forward slightly to gaze into the boy’s eyes, he said, softly:
“Why does your father say that?”
“Because people are ungrateful and jealous and hard, and would ill-use me, the same as they did him and drove him away from Rome.”
The visitor tightened his lips and was silent, sitting gazing past the boy and through the window, so full of thought that he broke off another grape, raised it to his lips, and then threw it through the opening into a tuft of flowers beyond.
“Ah!” he said, at last, as his eyes were turned again towards the boy. “And so you are going to live here then, and only be a student?”