"Severe," commented Radwalader, "but strictly accurate. Continue, my Jules."
"You can't make me angry, Radwalader. I'm changed a good bit in these past few weeks. I've been going easy on the drink for one thing, which may account for the fact that my head has cleared, and that I see a number of things in a very different light."
For an instant his eyes gleamed with a kind of eagerness.
"I wish you were easier to talk to, Radwalader," he added, his voice suddenly grown timorous with a hint of the old whimper. "With all your cold-bloodedness, you're the only—"
"When you've anything worth saying, I'm as easy to talk to as the next man," said Radwalader. "It's only when you begin to lament through your nose about the past, and remorse; and 'I remember, I remember the house where I was born,' that I'm not the pink of polite attention. I confess I can't stand that kind of thing; but, for this once, let it go. I'll hear you out."
"Well," continued the other, "one thing I've found out is that there is less tragedy than comedy about an old man looking back shamefacedly upon the past."
"That's the first sensible thing you've said," observed Radwalader.
"The tragic spectacle," added Vicot, "is that of the young man looking forward hopefully upon the future. Now the old man and the young man I describe have been in close proximity for several weeks, and the old man has learned that his own security isn't worth much, one way or another, when compared with the young man's security."
"The old man gets ten in modesty." Radwalader carefully entered the mark in an imaginary report-book.
"The old man sees," pursued Vicot, "that a certain person whom he has been fearing is really of infinitely minor importance, after all."