"'If it is disagreeable to you, I will not say another word, but can you suppose that a certain Hans Lutz--' "He sprang from his low seat and ran distractedly up and down the studio. "'Don't make me mad,' he cried. 'If you have noticed that I am over head and ears in love with the girl--as far as _that_ goes there is no disgrace in it; but I am not such an insane idiotic ape as to imagine for a moment that my respectable visage will drive the sweet child's first love out of her heart, and that a mere settlement in life will not decoy her you have yourself heard. Why then come and blow upon the coals with the bellows of your common-place philosophy? Am I not already wretched enough, in that I plainly see how hopeless the whole matter is, and yet cannot leave off gazing at her by the hour, just to burn in that cruel face of hers upon my memory? And now, forsooth, you must come and prate of solid possibilities, and congratulate me, and--the devil take it! It is just as if you were to hold the pin on which a living cockchafer is impaled in a candle, and make it red-hot.' "He threw himself down on a low ottoman in the corner with such vehemence, that he broke off the neck of a costly Florentine lute lying there, without even noticing it. "I would now gladly have recalled my thoughtless words. "'If the case is really so, Mynheer,' said I, 'I own there is nothing to congratulate you upon. But I do not understand why a man like you should so utterly despair. You have no tannery, but you are a famous artist; you do not smell of scents, but as a man should, of strong Porto Rico; and all the rest is mere matter of taste. Women are women, and it is impossible to reckon upon their fancies. That she is not exactly set upon an Adonis is evident--' "I might have gone on for some time putting forth these platitudes, with the best intentions, if he had not suddenly turned upon me with a quite phlegmatic air, and asked me--not without a quiver in his voice--what o'clock it was, and whether the 'Muette de Portici' was not going to be performed that night. I then saw plainly how things stood, swallowed down my annoyance at having so stupidly interfered in so tender a matter, and took leave under the pretext that my wife was waiting for me to pay a visit. "A visit on Whit Monday afternoon when no one is at home! but so one stumbles on from one discrepancy to another.