You can't leave this lad here, Paul. Take
him along."
"But your future?" still reluctant to see Victor leave France.
"It is there," with a nod toward the west.
"The vicomte . . ."
"We have signed a truce till we return to French soil."
"Well, if you will go," a secret joy in his heart. How he loved this
poet!
"It is the land of fortune, Paul; it is calling to us. True, I shall
miss the routs, the life at court, the plays and the gaming. But,
horns of Panurge! I am only twenty-three. In three years I shall have
conquered or have been conquered, and that is something. Do not
dissuade me. You will talk into the face of the tempest. Rather make
the going a joy for me. You know that at the bottom of your heart you
are glad."
"Misery loves company; we are all selfish," replied the Chevalier, "My
selfishness cries out for joy, but my sense of honesty tells me not to
let you go. I shall never return to France. You will not be happy
there."
"I shall be safer; and happiness is a matter of temperament, not of
time and place. You put up a poor defense. Look! we have been so long
together, Paul; eight years, since I was sixteen, and a page of her
Majesty's.
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