the city, and took his departure about nine o'clock in the morning.
"By the way, how did you sleep?" asked Corbario as he shook hands at parting. "I forgot to ask you."
"Soundly, thank you," answered the Professor.
And he drove away, waving his felt hat to his hosts.
CHAPTER III
Marcello coughed a little as he and Corbario trudged home through the sand under the hot May sun. It was sultry, though there were few clouds, and everything that grew looked suddenly languid; each flower and shrub gave out its own peculiar scent abundantly, the smell of last year's rotting leaves and twigs all at once returned and mingled with the odours of green things and of the earth itself, and the heavy air was over-rich with it all, and hard to breathe. By and by the clouds would pile themselves up into vast grey and black fortresses, far away beyond Rome, between the Alban and the Samnite hills, and the lightning would dart at them and tear them to pieces in spite, while the thunder roared out at each home-thrust that it was well done; and then the spring rain would sweep the Campagna, by its length and breadth, from the mountains to the sea, and the world would be refreshed. But now it was near noon and a heavy weariness lay upon the earth.
"You are tired," said Corbario, as they reached the shade of some trees, less than half a mile from the cottage. "Let us sit down for a while."
They sat down, where they could see the sea. It was dull and glassy under the high sun; here and there, far out, the sluggish currents made dark, irregular streaks.
Corbario produced cigarettes and offered one to Marcello, but the boy would not smoke; he said that it made him cough.
"I should smoke all the time, if I were quite well," he said, with a smile.
"And do many other things that young men do, I daresay," laughed Corbario. "Ride steeplechases, play cards all night, and drink champagne at breakfast."
"Perhaps." Marcello was amused at the picture. "I wonder whether I ever shall," he added.
Corbario glanced at him curiously. There was the faintest accent of longing in the tone, which was quite new.
"Why not?" Folco asked, still smiling. "It is merely a question of health, my dear boy. There is no harm in steeplechases if you do not break your neck, nor in playing cards if you do not play high, nor in drinking a glass of champagne now and then—no harm at all, that I can see. But, of course, so long as your lungs are delicate, you must be careful."
"Confound my lungs!" exclaimed Marcello with unusual energy. "I believe that I am much stronger than any of you think."
"I am sometimes inclined to believe it too," Corbario answered encouragingly.
"And I am quite sure that it would do me good to forget all about them and live as if there were nothing the matter with me. Don't you think so yourself?"
Corbario made a gesture of doubt, as if it were possible after all.
"Of course I don't mean dissipation," Marcello went on to say, suddenly assuming the manner of an elderly censor of morals, simply because he did not know what he was talking about. "I don't mean reckless dissipation."
"Of course not," Folco answered gravely. "You see, there are two sorts of dissipation. You must not forget that. The one kind means dissipating your fortune and your health; the other merely means dissipating melancholy, getting rid of care now and then, and of everything that bores one. That is the harmless sort."
"What they call 'harmless excitement'—yes, that is what I should like sometimes. There are days when I feel that I must have it. It is as if the blood went to my head, and my nerves are all on edge, and I wish something would happen, I don't know what, but something, something!"
"I know exactly what you mean, my dear boy," said Corbario in a tone of sympathy. "You see I am not very old myself, after all—barely thirty—not quite, in fact. I could call myself twenty-nine if it were not so much more respectable to be older."
"Yes. But do you mean to say that you feel just what I do now and then?" Marcello asked the question in considerable surprise. "Do you really know that sensation? That burning restlessness—that something like what the earth must feel before a thunderstorm—like the air at this moment?"
Not a muscle of Folco's still face moved.
"Yes," he answered quietly. "I know it very well. It is nothing but the sudden wish for a little harmless excitement, nothing else in the world, my dear boy, and it is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. It does not follow that it is at all convenient to yield to it, but we feel it because we lead such a very quiet life."
"But surely, we are perfectly happy," observed Marcello.
"Perfectly, absolutely happy. I do not believe that there are any happier people in the world than we three, your mother, you, and I. We have not a wish unfulfilled."
"No, except that one, when it comes."
"And that does not count in my case," answered Folco. "You see I have had a good deal of—'harmless excitement' in my life, and I know just what it is like, and that it is quite possible to be perfectly happy without it. In fact, I am. But you have never had any at all, and it is as absurd to suppose that young birds will not try to fly as that young men will not want amusement, now and then."
"I suppose that women cannot always understand that," said Marcello, after a moment.
"Women," replied Folco, unmoved, "do not always distinguish quite closely between excitement that is harmless for a man and excitement which is not. To tell the truth," he added, with a laugh, "they hardly ever distinguish at all, and it is quite useless to talk to them about it."
"But surely, there are exceptions?"
"Not many. That is the reason why there is a sort of freemasonry among men of the world, a kind of tacit agreement that women need not be told what goes on at the clubs, and at men's dinners, and late at night when old friends have spent an evening together. Not that there is any harm in it all; but women would not understand. They have their innocent little mysteries which they keep from us, and we have harmless little secrets which we do not let them know."
Folco laughed softly at his own way of putting it, and perhaps because Marcello so easily accepted his point of view.
"I see," said the boy. "I wonder whether my mother would not understand that. It seems so simple!"
"She will, when the time comes, no doubt," answered Corbario. "Your mother is a great exception, my dear boy. On the other hand, she is so anxious about your health just now, that, if I were you, I would not say anything about feeling the want of a little excitement. Of course your life is monotonous. I know it. But there is nothing more monotonous than getting well, is there? The best part of it is the looking forward to what one will do when one is quite strong. You and I can talk of that, sometimes, and build castles in the air; but it is of no use to give your mother the idea that you are beating your wings against the bars of your cage, is it?"
Folco was quite lyric that day, but the words made exactly the impression he wished.
