t just such an utterly harmless old maid as I!"

CHAPTER VII.

The friends turned their steps toward a beer-garden on the Dultplatz,
where, at this time of day--between two and three o'clock--it was
pretty quiet in spite of its being Sunday. The noonday guests had
finished with their dinners long ago, and the afternoon concert had not
yet begun. Instead of it three sleepy fiddlers, an elderly harp-player,
and a jovial clarinet were playing on a platform in the middle of the
garden. Of these musicians the clarinet-player alone still defied the
drowsy influences of the siesta hour, attempting, by wild and desperate
runs, to rouse the nodding quartette. On the benches in the shade of
the tall ash-trees there sat a very mixed company, for in Munich the
differences between the classes is far less marked than in any of the
other large German cities; and among the rest, at the smallest tables,
were numerous pairs of lovers who, lulled into a state of dreamy
comfort by plentiful eating and drinking, rested their heads on one
another's shoulders, held each other's hands and abandoned themselves
freely to their feelings. Yet no one seemed to take offense at this; on
the contrary, it seemed to belong to the place as much as the gnats
that swarmed in the air. The three late arrivals seated themselves in
one of the most secluded corners and proceeded to do justice to the
viands which the waitress, who treated Jansen with conspicuous respect,
had put aside for them. It was anything but a sumptuous meal, but the
taste for the pleasures of the table seemed to be so little developed
in the sculptor that it never occurred to him to celebrate the reunion
with his friend by a bottle of wine. Felix knew this and overlooked it.
Still, he had hoped to find him more animated and communicative after
their long separation; and now he could not help noticing how he sat at
his side, preoccupied and speaking only in monosyllables, intent only
upon feeding Homo, who swallowed the big mouthfuls that were given him
with grave decorum.

In the mean time, there joined the group a fourth person, for whom the
battle-painter seemed to have looked from the beginning. He was a slim
young man, pale and with curly black hair, whose manner at once
announced him to be an actor. He wore, over one eye, a black silk
shade, that made his paleness still more conspicuous, and the sharp
lines above his expressive mouth gave evide