"Some people of old believed that stars have something to do with meetings and partings by their disposition and that some if not all men have each a star allotted to them."
"Perhaps," said Cosmo in the same subdued voice. "But I believe there is a man greater than you or I who believes he has a star of his own."
"Napoleon, perhaps."
"So I have heard," said Cosmo, and thought, "Here he is, whenever two men meet he is a third, one can't get rid of him."
"I wonder where it is," said Attilio, as if to himself, looking up at the sky. "Or yours, or mine," he added in a still lower tone. "They must be pretty close together."
Cosmo humoured the superstitious strain absently, for he felt a secret sympathy for that man. "Yes, it looks as if yours and mine had been fated to draw together."
"No, I mean all three together."
"Do you? Then you must know more than I do. Though indeed as a matter of fact he is not very far from us where we sit. But don't you think, my friend, that there are men and women, too, whose stars mark them for loneliness no man can approach?"
"You mean because they are great."
"Because they are incomparable," said Cosmo after a short pause, in which Attilio seemed to ponder.