"What I mean," elucidated James, "is that, if you feel that way about it, it's probable that you really deserve what happiness you have. After all, you know, you have paid for some. You have had your times; I don't mind admitting that there have been moments when you weren't quite the archangel which of course you are at present!"
Harry laughed. "The prophet Jeremiah once said something about its being good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. If that is equivalent to saying that the earlier a man has his bad times the better, it may be that I got off more easily by having them in college than if they'd held off till later. One does learn certain things easier if one learns them early. But that doesn't mean that your youth has passed without your feeling the yoke, or that your youth has passed yet. You're still in the Jeremiah class! One would hardly say that at thirty—you're not much over thirty, are you?"
"A few weeks under, I believe."
"I'm sorry!—Well, at thirty there are surely years of youth ahead of you, which you, having borne your yoke, may look forward to without fear and with every prospect of enjoying to the fullest extent. Whereas I—well, there's even more time for me to bear yokes in, if necessary. I don't much believe that Jeremiah has done with me yet, somehow!"
"You're not afraid of the future, though, are you?" asked James after a pause.
"Oh, no—that would never do. I feel about it as.... One can't say these things without sounding cocksure and insufferable!"
"You mean you'll do your best under the circumstances?"
"Yes, or make a good try at it! And then.... Of course I can't be as happy as I am without having a good deal at stake; I've given hostages to fortune—that's Francis Bacon, not me. And if fortune should look upon those hostages with a covetous eye—if anything, for instance, should happen to Madge in what's coming, why, there are still plenty of things that the worst fortune can't spoil!... Well, you know."
"Yes," said James; "I know."
"In fact, there are certain things in the past so dear to me that perhaps, if it came to the point, it would be almost a joy to pay heavily for them. But that's only the way I feel about it now, of course. It's easy enough to be brave when there's no danger."