Max waived the words. "I am serious. I ask you if you do not believe that there are certain people to whom these things you speak of are poor things—people who believe that they are sufficient unto themselves?"
The other's mouth twisted into a sarcastic smile.
"Show me the man who is sufficient unto himself!"
Swiftly—as swiftly as he had whipped the pencil from his pocket in the café that morning—Max stepped back, his head up, his hand resting lightly on the wooden parapet.
"Monsieur! You see him!"
Blake's expression changed to keen surprise; he turned sharply and peered into the boy's face.
"You?" he said, incredulously. "You, a slip of a boy, to ignore the softer side of life and set yourself up against Nature? Take that fairy-tale elsewhere!"
Max laughed. "Very well, my friend, wait and see!"
"And do you know how long I give you to defy the world, the flesh, and the devil? A full-blooded young animal like you!"
"How long?"