“You have been an exceptionally fortunate man,” remarked the latter, who was not old enough to be anything but cynical in his views of life.

“Do you think so?  Yes—­I have been fortunate.  But I do not like to think that my happiness has been so very exceptional.  The world is a good place, full of happy people.  It must be—­otherwise purgatory and hell would be useless institutions.”

“You do not suppose all people to be good as well as happy then,” said Orsino with a laugh.

“Good?  What is goodness, my friend?  One half of the theologians tell us that we shall be happy if we are good and the other half assure us that the only way to be good is to abjure earthly happiness.  If you will believe me, you will never commit the supreme error of choosing between the two methods.  Take the world as it is, and do not ask too many questions of the fates.  If you are willing to be happy, happiness will come in its own shape.”

Orsino’s young face expressed rather contemptuous amusement.  At twenty, happiness is a dull word, and satisfaction spells excitement.

“That is the way people talk,” he said.  “You have got everything by fighting for it, and you advise me to sit still till the fruit drops into my mouth.”

“I was obliged to fight.  Everything comes to you naturally—­fortune, rank—­everything, including marriage.  Why should you lift a hand?”

“A man cannot possibly be happy who marries before he is thirty years old,” answered Orsino with conviction.  “How do you expect me to occupy myself during the next ten years?”

“That is true,” Gouache replied, somewhat thoughtfully, as though the consideration had not struck him.

“If I were an artist, it would be different.”

“Oh, very different.  I agree with you.”  Anastase smiled good-humouredly.

“Because I should have talent—­and a talent is an occupation in itself.”

“I daresay you would have talent,” Gouache answered, still laughing.

“No—­I did not mean it in that way—­I mean that when a man has a talent it makes him think of something besides himself.”

“I fancy there is more truth in that remark than either you or I would at first think,” said the painter in a meditative tone.

“Of course there is,” returned the youthful philosopher, with more enthusiasm than he would have cared to show if he had been talking to a woman.  “What is talent but a combination of the desire to do and the power to accomplish?  As for genius, it is never selfish when it is at work.”

“Is that reflection your own?”

“I think so,” answered Orsino modestly.  He was secretly pleased that a man of the artist’s experience and reputation should be struck by his remark.

“I do not think I agree with you,” said Gouache.

Orsino’s expression changed a little.  He was disappointed, but he said nothing.

“I think that a great genius is often ruthless.  Do you remember how Beethoven congratulated a young composer after the first performance of his opera?  ‘I like your opera—­I will write music to it.’  That was a fine instance of unselfishness, was it not.  I can see the young man’s face—­” Anastase smiled.