id;
I longed to share the tempestuousness of his life and thoughts. He
brought with him other remembrances, of the passions and the events that
we two had, in friendship or hostility, witnessed together. They had
seemed, all of them, far behind in the past, belonging to the days when,
as old Vohrenlorf had told me, I had still six years. Now I had only a
month; but the images were with me, importunate and pleading. I was
asking whether I could not, even now, save something out of life.

Three days later found me established in a hotel in the Place Vendome at
Paris, Vohrenlorf my only companion. I was in strictest _incognito_;
Baron de Neberhausen was my name. But in Paris in August my _incognito_
was almost a superfluity for me, although a convenience to others. It
was very hot; I did not care. The town was absolutely empty. Not for me!
Here is my secret. Wetter was in Paris. I had seen it stated in the
newspaper. What brought the man of moods to Paris in August? I could
answer the question in one way only: the woman of his mood. I did not
care about her; I wanted to see him and hear again from his own lips
what he thought of the universe, of my part and his in it, and of the
ways of the Power that ruled it. In a month I should be on my honeymoon
with Cousin Elsa. I fought desperately against the finality implied in
that.

On the second evening I gave Vohrenlorf the slip, and went out on the
Boulevards alone. In great cities nobody is known; I enjoyed the luxury
of being ignored. I might pass for a student, a chemist, at a pinch,
perhaps, for a poet of a reflective type. My natural manner would seem
no more than a touch of youth's pardonable arrogance. I sat down and had
some coffee. It was half-past ten, and the pavements were full. I bought
a paper and read a paragraph about Elsa and myself. Elsa and myself both
seemed rather a long way off. It was delicious to make believe that this
here and this now were reality; the kingship, Elsa, the wedding and the
rest, some story or poem that I, the student, had been making
laboriously before working hours ended, and I was free to seek the
Boulevards. I was pleased when a pretty girl, passing by, stared hard at
me and seemed to like my looks; this tribute was my own; she was not
staring at the king.

Satisfaction, not surprise, filled me when, in about twenty minutes, I
saw Wetter coming toward the _cafe_. I had taken a table far back from
the street, and he did not see me.