“Do you know,” he said presently, “I've met one or two fellows from time to time, who have been to a city like yours—perhaps it was the same one. They won't talk much about it—only broken hints, now and then; but they've been there sure enough. They don't seem to care about anything in particular—and everything's the same to them, rough or smooth; and sooner or later they slip off and disappear; and you never see them again. Gone back, I suppose.”
“Of course,” said I. “Don't see what they ever came away for; I wouldn't. To be told you've broken things when you haven't, and stopped having tea with the servants in the kitchen, and not allowed to have a dog to sleep with you. But I've known people, too, who've gone there.”
The artist stared, but without incivility.
“Well, there's Lancelot,” I went on. “The book says he died, but it never seemed to read right, somehow. He just went away, like Arthur. And Crusoe, when he got tired of wearing clothes and being respectable. And all the nice men in the stories who don't marry the Princess, 'cos only one man ever gets married in a book, you know. They'll be there!”
“And the men who fail,” he said, “who try like the rest, and toil, and eat their hearts out, and somehow miss—or break down or get bowled over in the mêlée—and get no Princess, nor even a second-class kingdom—some of them'll be there, I hope?”
“Yes, if you like,” I replied, not quite understanding him; “if they're friends of yours, we'll ask 'em, of course.”
“What a time we shall have!” said the artist reflectively; “and how shocked old Marcus Aurelius will be!”
The shadows had lengthened uncannily, a tide of golden haze began to flood the grey-green surface of the downs, and the artist put his traps together, preparatory to a move. I felt very low: we would have to part, it seemed, just as we were getting on so well together. Then he stood up, and he was very straight and tall, and the sunset was in his hair and beard as he stood there, high over me. He took my hand like an equal. “I've enjoyed our conversation very much,” he said. “That was an interesting subject you started, and we haven't half exhausted it. We shall meet again, I hope?”
“Of course we shall,” I replied, surprised that there should be any doubt about it.
“In Rome perhaps?” said he.