ustible variations. When, after half an hour or so, Felix
interrupted Schnetz with the laughing remark that his teacher would
scold him if he came to work too late, he found that he himself had not
spoken a dozen words; and yet the lieutenant took leave of him with the
remark that he rejoiced to have discovered in him a congenial spirit,
and hoped the four flights of stairs would not be so high as to keep
him from their acquaintance later over a glass of beer and a tolerable
cigar.

CHAPTER VII.

The weird shadow-pictures and the biting epigrams of his new friend
haunted Felix all the way down the four flights. His head was in a
whirl with them; his heart felt a keen sympathy for this extraordinary
being. "What a life!" he said to himself. "How much power is rusting
and going to decay there in the dark! And who is to blame for it?--and
I, who knows but what I--"

He pursued his soliloquy no further. As he stepped into the sunny
streets a carriage rolled quickly past, and from it fluttered a
silver-gray veil. In a moment all his thoughts were upon Irene again.
Of course it could not have been she; not to-day, at all events. But
if she should return from her excursion to-morrow and drive by like
this--what then? What would she think? That he had followed her and was
seeking an opportunity for reconciliation, after she had bidden him go?
Anything rather than such a suspicion! Even though he knew that he was
not entirely blameless, his pride was too deeply hurt, his honor was
too deeply wounded, for him to make any advances or to suffer even the
suspicion of doing so. That she was not running after him, and that she
had not the slightest idea in what direction he had turned his steps,
he did not for a moment doubt. He knew her proud spirit so well, that
he only feared one thing, and that was, that upon catching the faintest
hint of his being anywhere near her, she would throw aside all her
plans and insist upon leaving the city again; indeed, would rather face
the Italian summer and all the dangers of sickness, than give rise to
the suspicion that she felt she had been too hasty with him and wished
the unfortunate letter unwritten.

The simplest and at the same time the most chivalrous way of getting
out of the difficulty would have been for him to have gone out of her
way himself; but after brief consideration he rejected this plan as
altogether impracticable. An uncontrollable lov