"Do you intend to stay much longer in Lugano?" asked George. "No, we go to-morrow to Bellaggio, from there to Lake Maggiore, Isola Bella. A really good time never lasts. We have got to be home again in a fortnight." "Such short leave?" "Oh, it is not on my account, but Therese has got to go back. I am quite a free man. I have already sent in my papers." "So you seriously mean to retire to your estate?" "My estate?" "Yes, I heard something to that effect at Ehrenbergs'." "But I haven't got the estate yet, you see. It is simply in the stage of negotiations." "And where are you going to buy one? if it is not a rude question." "Where the foxes say good-night to each other. The last place you would think of. On the Hungarian-Croatian frontier, very lonely and remote but very remarkable. I have a certain sympathy for the district. Youthful memories. I spent three years there as a lieutenant. Of course I think I shall grow young again there. Well, who knows?" "A fine property?" "Not bad. I saw it again two months ago. I knew it of course in the old days, it then belonged to Count Jaczewicz, finally to a manufacturer. Then his wife died. He now feels lonely down there and wants to get rid of it." "I don't know," said George, "but I imagine the neighbourhood a little melancholy." "Melancholy! Well, it seems to me that at a certain period of one's life every neighbourhood acquires a melancholy appearance." And he looked round the balcony, as though to evolve from his surroundings a new proof of the truth of his words. "At what period?" "Well, when one begins to get old." George smiled. Demeter struck him as so handsome and as still young in spite of the grey hairs on his temple. "How old are you then, Herr Stanzides? if it isn't a rude question." "Thirty-seven. I don't say I am old, but I am getting old. Men usually begin to talk about getting old when they have been old for a long time." They sat down on the seat at the end of the garden, just where it runs into the wall. They had a view of the hotel and of the great terrace on the garden. The upper storeys with their verandahs were hidden from them by the foliage of the trees. George offered Demeter a cigarette and took one himself. And both were silent for a while. "I heard that you, too, are leaving Vienna," said Demeter. "Yes, that's very probable ... if of course I get a job in some opera. Well, even if it isn't this year it is bound to be next." Demeter sat with legs crossed over each other, gripped one of them tightly by the knee, and nodded. "Yes, yes," he said, and blew the smoke slowly through his lips in driblets. "It is really a fine thing to have a talent. In that case one is bound to feel a bit different sometimes, even about beginning to grow old. That is really the one thing I could envy a man for."