ever
uttered a word about his projected or perhaps actual marriage, about
which there was a rumor some six years ago. I thought the whole matter
had either fallen through or else turned out unhappily. But now he
seems, after all, not to be alone. Do you know anything about his
private circumstances?"

"Nothing whatever," answered the painter. "None of us have ever set
foot across his threshold; and, the moment any one asks where he
lodges, he grows as snappish as a bear, just as you saw him a few
minutes ago. As for women, he will have nothing to do with them, that
can be seen plainly enough from all he does. Whether, in spite of all
this, he has a household of his own, can't be discovered. He once cut
dead a prying fellow who followed him one night to see where he kept
himself."

"I think," said Elfinger, "that the pleasure we get from his society
six days in the week is so great that we might at least leave him to
himself on the seventh. But now let us help the Baron look for rooms,
and debate how we can best show him the city this evening."

When, toward midnight, Felix left the beer-cellar, where he had been
for several hours enjoying the evening air, and returned to his
lodgings--a suite of pleasant rooms overlooking flower-gardens and the
quiet streets beyond--a singular feeling of depression suddenly came
over him. He had now attained what he cared more for than for anything
else. No one could enjoy more perfect freedom than he. No one could
begin life afresh more untrammeled by social forms. Then, too, the
cheerful, lively city, with its gay life, the free and easy artists'
society into which he had entered--all this had corresponded with his
wish and expectations, and promised him compensation for many a ruined
hope. It was the only atmosphere that seemed suited to him, the only
surroundings among which he could find again, even in the Old World,
something of that unrestrained freedom that he had enjoyed so much
beyond the ocean. And when, notwithstanding all this, he went to bed
with a heavy sigh and waited long for sleep in vain--why was it?

CHAPTER VIII.

On the following morning, Felix brought a whole armful of his
sketch-books to Jansen. The latter seemed to look through them with
interest, and listened patiently to the accounts of the adventures, of
which many of them were hasty illustrations, but he did not utter a
single word in regard to any artistic worth wh