to a laugh,
only to sigh all the more sadly the next minute.

He felt the impossibility, in his present mood, of joining his friends,
who were waiting for him at a beer-cellar. Jansen was generally one of
the party. But, even if everything between them had remained just as it
was in the old times, Felix would have avoided him to-day.

When he found himself in such a mood that he could not endure his
fellow-men, he generally found that he nowhere felt so well as upon
horseback.

He went to a stable in the neighborhood, and was soon cantering across
the Obeliskenplatz on a powerful horse. He rode down the beautiful
broad street, through the marble gate of the Propylaea, and outside, in
the shady avenue that leads to the Nymphenburger Villa, he gave his
horse full rein. But even here, where a fresher air blew across the
quiet fields, it was so sultry that the animal soon dropped into a
quieter gait of his own accord.

The street was not very lively. Only a few workmen were strolling home
from the town, and some soldiers came singing arm-in-arm out of a
tavern. They were walking behind a girl who was hastening to get back
to town before it grew quite dark. She was neatly dressed, of a very
pretty figure, and, according to the fashion then in vogue, wore her
hair falling loose over her shoulders. This seemed to incite the
fellows to strike up an acquaintance with her, and the short, snappish
way in which she repelled their advances only fanned their impudence
the higher. One seized her by her fluttering hair, another laughingly
attempted to get possession of her arm; and, as it chanced that the
foot-path behind the trees was quite deserted, she would have tried in
vain to shake off her tormentors had not Felix happened to gallop up
just at that moment. He shouted to the fellows in a loud voice to
instantly let the girl alone, and go to the devil. Whether they took
him for an officer in _mufti_, or were frightened by his commanding
manner, they obeyed at once, and started across the fields to the
barracks, whose massive structure towered from afar across the dark
meadow.

The deliverer now took a closer look at the girl. There could be no
doubt he had seen this little nose, these white teeth, and that red
hair, once before, on that first morning in Jansen's studio. And now he
recalled her name.

"Good-evening, Fraeulein Zenz," he said. "What lonely and dangerous
walks you take!"

"Dangerous!" she returned, laughing,