k, but go on and finish this background to-day,
before the colors dry in."

Up to this time Jansen had not spoken a syllable. Now he stepped up to
Angelica, gave her his hand, and said:

"If you don't spoil this, my dear friend, you will make something out
of it that will do you great honor. Adieu!"

He turned quickly away, and strode out of the studio without casting a
glance to right or left.

CHAPTER IX.

When his friends overtook him in the street he remained silent and
serious; while Rosenbusch praised, in the most extravagant language,
the beauty of the picture.

"If my heart were not already in such firm hands," he said, with a
sigh, "who knows what might happen! But constancy is no empty dream.
Besides, Angelica would scratch any one's eyes out who tried to play
the Romeo to her Juliet. But where are you dragging us to, Jansen?"

"We are going to see 'Fat Rossel.'"

"Then I prefer to withdraw at once to my feeding-place and to await you
there. I have made a solemn vow never again to visit that accursed
Sybarite just before meal-time. It smells so devilishly of ambergris,
_pati de foie gras_ and East-Indian birds'-nests, so that after coming
away a man feels like a thorough vagabond over his wretched dumplings.
The devil take these lazy voluptuaries! Long live energy and
_sauerkraut_!"

After this fierce outburst he nodded smilingly to the two others,
slouched his big hat over his left ear, and turned, whistling, into a
side street.

"Who is this 'Fat Rossel' against whom our friend Rosebud displays all
his thorns?" asked Felix.

"He isn't really so fierce as he tries to make himself out. The two are
good comrades, and would go through fire and water for one another in
case of need. This so-called 'Fat Rossel'--one Edward Rossel--is a very
rich man who isn't obliged to earn his living by painting--and for that
reason lets his great talent lie fallow. However, he has reduced his
intellectual laziness and amateur enjoyment of art to a system, and
concerning this system Rosenbusch invariably falls foul of him; for he
himself, in spite of all his 'energy,' has never produced anything of
much account. Here we are at the house."

They passed through the pretty little front garden, before which they
had halted the day previous while on their way to the Pinakothek,
entered the door of a villa-like house, and mounted a staircase covered
with soft carpets. The hall shon