to withstand: "What's the matter, LIEBSTER? Why are you so
different?--so changed?"

"The matter? Nothing--that I'm aware of," said Maurice, and considered
the tip of his cigarette.

"Oh, yes, there is," and Krafft laid a caressing hand on his
companion's arm. "You are changed. You're not frank with me. I feel
such things at once."

"Well, how on earth am I to know when to be frank with you, and when
not? Before you ... not very long ago, you behaved as if you didn't
want to have anything more to do with me."

"You are changed, and, if I'm not mistaken, I know why," said Krafft,
ignoring his answer. "You have been listening to gossip--to what my
enemies say of me."

"I don't listen to gossip. And I didn't know you had enemies, as you
call them."

"I?--and not have enemies?" He flared up as though Maurice had
affronted him. "My good fellow, did you ever bear of a man worth his
salt, who didn't have enemies? It's the penalty one pays: only the
dolts and the 'all-too-many' are friends with the whole world. No one
who has work to do that's worth doing, can avoid making enemies. And
who knows what a friend is, who hasn't an enemy to match him? It's a
question of light and shade, theme and counter-theme, of artistic
proportion." He laughed, in his superior way. But directly afterwards,
he dropped back into his former humble tone. "But that you, my friend,
are so ready to let yourself be influenced--I should not have believed
it of you."

"What I heard, I heard from Furst; and I have no reason to suspect him
of falsehood.--Of course, if you assure me it was not true, that's a
different thing." He turned so sharply that he sent a beautiful flush
over Krafft's face. "Come, give me your word, Heirtz, and things will
be straight again."

But Krafft merely shrugged his shoulders, and his colour subsided as
rapidly as it had risen.

"Are you still such an outsider," he asked, "after all this time--in my
society--as to attach importance to a word? What is 'giving a word'? Do
you really think it is of any value? May I not give it tonight, and
take it back to-morrow, according to the mood I am in, according to
whether I believe it myself or not, at the moment?--You think a thing
must either be true or not true? You are wrong. Do you believe, when
you answer a question in the affirmative or the negative, that you are
actually telling the truth? No, my friend, to be perfectly truthful one
would need to lose oneself in a maze