ey waited with
beating hearts to hear what news Jansen would bring back, for nothing
could dissuade him from going up to the sick man's room.

Felix lay as before in a half-sleeping state, so that Schnetz, whose
watch it happened to be, thought it would do no harm to admit his
friend. But they merely greeted one another with a silent nod. Then the
sculptor stepped up to the sick-bed of his Icarus, and, turning his
head away from the others, stood there motionless for full ten minutes.
Schnetz, who had seated himself again on the stool before the easel and
was cutting out a silhouette, noticed that a trembling, like that of
suppressed sobs, shook Jansen's massive frame. He was surprised at
this, for he did not know in what intimate relations the two had stood
to one another.

"There is no danger," he said, in a low voice; "a few weeks and he will
be able to mount his horse again. How he will get on with his modeling
is not so certain. That cut over the right hand was very heavy. But I
imagine that will be your least sorrow."

The sculptor did not answer.

But the wounded man seemed to have caught a word or two of what Schnetz
had whispered. He slowly opened his heavy, feverish eyes, and, with a
dreamy smile that gave a sweet, arch look to his pale face, he
muttered:

"Sorrow!--why should any one be sorry? The world is so beautiful--even
pain does one good. No, no, we will laugh--laugh--and drink to the
health--"

He made a movement, and the piercing pain it caused him roused him
thoroughly. He recognized the silent figure at his bedside.

"Hans, my old Daedalus!" he cried, making a motion of his hand toward
his friend, "is it you? Good!--this is capital! This gives me more
pleasure--than I can tell you! Have you left your Paradise to come out
here? Oh, if you knew--you see I must not talk much--I could not, even
if I would--else--Heavens! what things--I should have to tell you! And
you me, wouldn't you, old boy? Between ourselves, it wasn't just as it
should have been--we knew almost nothing at all about one another--you
had your head full, and I too. But now, as soon as I am able to talk
again--you know that no human being is what you are to me--except
one--except one--and even she--"

Schnetz rose with considerable noise, stepped up to the bed, and said:
"Fresh ice is of more account just now than warm old friendship. So
stop a bit!"

He made a sign to Jansen to go out without waiting to take leave, and
th