“Perhaps,” replied the baroness—“perhaps we have done wrong to discourage the young man.”
“Discourage? What are you talking about? I told him he had great talent. Do you wish to know what I think?” he added, as he stood for an instant before her. “What ruins art in the present day is that it is gorged with gold, and that too few men of genius die in the hospital—that is the reason!”
Adieu, Marie.
Something else was said, which Paul did not hear.
The baroness paused, as she was about to enter the carriage.
“Well, what is the matter with you?” said her husband.
“I am not very well,” she replied.
“So much more reason for getting in the carriage. What ails you?”
“The face of that young man haunts me. Who knows what despair may drive him to? Who knows how terrible may be his hidden suffering? Let us go back. I feel as though we had just committed a crime. Let us go back. Thirty years ago I read a story which I had long forgotten, but that now returns vaguely to my memory as a warning. I no longer remember [pg 701] the whole, but the impression comes back vague and terrible after thirty years. Ah! let us go back.”
The baron stopped, and laughed immensely.