ortal about you!" replied the
painter.

They continued for a while to chaff and plague one another, Rosenbusch
and Felix also contributing their share. Jansen alone did not jest, and
Julie, too, took advantage of her slight acquaintance to take no
further part in the conversation than common politeness demanded.

After the men had gone, a long silence followed between the two
friends. The artist had taken up her palette again, in order that she
might, after all, make use of Rossel's hints. Suddenly she said:

"Well, how did he please you?"

"Who?"

"Why, of course, there can be only one in question: the one who exerted
himself least to please anybody, not even you."

"Jansen? Why, I scarcely know him!"

"One knows such men in the first quarter of an hour, when one is as old
as we two are. It is just that which distinguishes the great men and
the thorough artists from the petty and the half-way ones--one knows
the lion by his claws. Just one look, and you will believe him capable
of the most incredible and superhuman things."

"I really believe, my dear, you are in--"

"Love with him! No. I am, at all events, sensible enough not to let
anything so nonsensical as that enter my head. But, if he were to say
to me: 'I should take it as a favor, Angelica, if you would just eat
this bladder-full of flake-white for your breakfast,' or, 'if you would
try to paint with your foot, it would afford me a personal pleasure,' I
believe I should not hesitate a moment. I should think he must
undoubtedly have his reasons for it, and that I was only too stupid to
comprehend them. Don't you see, such is my immovable faith in this
unprecedented man, so impossible does it seem to me that he could do
anything small, foolish, or even commonplace. Something horrible--yes,
something monstrous and insane--I could believe him capable of, and who
knows whether he has not really done something of the sort? He has
something about him like a little Vesuvius, that stands there in the
sun peacefully enough, and yet everybody knows what is boiling inside.
His friends say of Jansen that, if the Berserker once breaks out in
him, he is a bad man to deal with. I felt this from the first, with an
unerring instinct, and I hardly dared to sneeze in his presence. Then I
chanced to meet him in the garden, near the fountain, where he was
combing his Homo, and showing himself pretty awkward at it. He struck
me then as being so helpless that I could not he