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Youth! Artois was not by nature a sentimentalist--and he was not a
fool. He knew how to accept the inevitable things life cruelly brings
to men, without futile struggling, without contemptible pretence.
Quite calmly, quite serenely, he had accepted the snows of middle age.
He had not secretly groaned or cursed, railed against destiny, striven
to defy it by travesty, as do many men. He had thought himself to be
"above" all that--until lately. But now, as he thought of the fire, he
was conscious of an immense sadness that had in it something of
passion, or a regret that was, for a moment, desperate, bitter, that
seared, that tortured, that was scarcely to be endured. It is terrible
to realize that one is at a permanent disadvantage, which time can
only increase. And just then Artois felt that there was nothing, that
there could never be anything, to compensate any human being for the
loss of youth.
He began to wonder about the people of the island. The Marchesino had
spoken with a strange assurance.


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