“What will you tell him then?” said Antoine, turning his dark eyes without deranging his languid attitude along the seat. “Just that I said some ‘sottises,’ the same as always?”
“He is not a child,” thought Lucien instantly. “He is clever, maddening. Of course, my action will have to be explained. I shall say,” he said aloud, with deliberation, “that we differed about the concerto. That you were difficult and headstrong over that, which is certainly true. You have admitted since that it was too much for you, eh?”
“Yes,” said the boy. “It is an awful thing, but I played it. I had to have something real that night.”
“You imply my father’s composition is not real?”
“Oh, do not,” said the boy, under his breath. “I have remembered he is your father now.”
“To be sure,” said M. Lucien, with stateliness. “And have you no duty to him as well?”
“I shall see him soon. I shall remember then.” Antoine diverted his eyes, to his uncle’s private relief. “Do you think I do not want to remember, after that?”
“I should think you would be ashamed,” said Lucien, by way of the last word in argument, and retired to his paper.
“You like me to be ashamed,” said Antoine, snatching the last word from him, though still with a manner of extreme languor. “Good, then, I have been. It is not”—he watched the trees of Normandy sleepily—“a very nice feeling.”
“I am glad you know what it is like, at least,” growled his uncle into the paper.