thing, lots of things you don't do, but thinking! I like to
have a deed like that come very close to me. It is just as if we were
for a moment permitted to take into our hands and hold some rare object
that doesn't belong to us. And then it's so gloriously exciting, this
suspense: shall you do it or not? We must seek such situations; but
that's all one, I am grateful to you, it was very unpleasant down
there. I never thought one would feel so alone in dying, just among
water-plantains and the divers, that don't care anything about it. No,
death must be undertaken in common. So I am very grateful to you for
saving my life."

"Don't mention it," said Moritz indifferently while dressing.

"Yes, very grateful," continued Boris, "we really ought to be friends
from now on, close friends, you know."

Moritz was now fully dressed. He stood still before Boris, looked down
upon him with aversion, and said, "Just on account of that little bit
of water you swallowed, no thanks." Then he went.

The noon meal was sufficiently uncomfortable. Count Hamilcar and the
professor did to be sure talk eagerly on remote subjects, as if nothing
had happened, but Countess Betty smiled but absent-mindedly and thought
of other matters. The only sensation was that Lisa had not appeared in
black today, but was wearing a mallow-colored muslin dress with
old-rose ribbons. Boris, very pale, conversed with her as formally as
if he had just met her.

"Reception at the Queen of Poland's," Bob whispered to Erika. The two
children were unbearable today and had to be called to order again and
again. Billy's chair remained empty. She was lying half undressed on
the bed in her room upstairs, her disheveled hair falling into her hot
face, and she was very impatient with Marion. Again and again Marion
had to repeat what Boris had said. "I want to know it absolutely word
for word and you don't tell me that way."

"Yes, I do," asseverated Marion, "it was like this: 'Tell Billy that it
is better for us not to see each other again today, and we won't take
leave of each other, either; she must wait, she will have word of me,
and then my fate and hers will rest entirely in her hands.'"

"He certainly didn't say 'fate,' that isn't his style at all,"
complained Billy, "and then decide--what shall I decide, oh dear, it's
terrible. And you say Lisa had on her light-colored muslin today, what
for? and of course Boris is furious because papa insulted him." She
flun