They were among the trees now and walked on briskly. Both of them needed movement and action, something to "take them out of themselves." A gray squirrel ran down from its tree with a waving tail and crossed just in front of them slowly. Charmian followed it with her eyes. It had an air of cheerful detachment, of self-possession, almost of importance, as if it were fully conscious of its own value in the scheme of the universe, whatever others might think.
"How contented that little beast looks," said Claude.
"But it can never be really happy, as you and I could be, as we are going to be."
"No, perhaps not. But there's the other side."
He quoted Dante:
"Quanto la cosa è più perfetta, più senta il bene, e così la doglienza."
"I don't wish to prove that I'm high up in the scale by suffering," she said. "Do you?"
"Ought not the artist to be ready for every experience?" he answered.
And she thought she detected in his voice a creeping of irony.
"We are getting near to the theater," she said presently, when they had walked for a time in silence. "Let us keep in the Park till we are close to it, and then just stand and look at it for a moment from the opposite side of the way."