‘They are too easily happy. That’s another curse.’
‘But you surely don’t want them to be unhappy,’ she remonstrated. ‘Since they have to be poor, shouldn’t you rather see them contented?’
‘Certainly not. They have nothing to be contented with.’
‘But I don’t see that it makes any difference what you are contented with so long as you are contented.’
He looked at her with a half-smile.
‘Nonsense, Miss Marcia; you know better than that. When people are contented with their lot, does their lot ever improve? Do you think the Italian people ought to be happy? You have seen the way they live, or—no,’ he broke off, ‘you don’t know anything about it.’
‘Yes, I do,’ she returned. ‘I know they’re poor—horribly poor—but they seem to get a good deal of pleasure out of life in spite of it.’
He shook his head. ‘You can’t convince me with that argument. Have you never heard of a holy discontent? That’s what these people need—and,’ he added grimly, ‘some of them have got it.’
‘A holy discontent,’ she repeated. ‘What a terrible thing to have! It’s like living for revenge.’
‘Oh, well,’ he shrugged, ‘a man must live for something besides his three meals a day.’