"Sensible men like you and me, Doctor Behrend, haven't the least idea of the nonsensical things that haunt such a learned, poetic head as Walter Fernow's."
"He needs a spur to effort," replied the doctor, gravely. "He needs an energetic, ardent force to remain daily and hourly at his side, and wrest him from that ideal life, to animate him for the conflict with the world and give him what he does not possess; ambition and self-confidence. If this were granted him, I believe there is no height he might not attain in the long future yet before him. But if an unhappy passion once comes to such a nature--"
Here Doctor Stephen suddenly wheeled around, and with supreme astonishment gazed into his colleague's face. "An unhappy passion!" he cried. "For Heaven's sake, our professor has not fallen in love!"
Behrend bit his lips in vexation. "Oh, not at all! It only occurred to me as a mere supposition."
Doctor Stephen was not so easily satisfied. "You have hinted at the truth," he said, "now out with it; who is the professor in love with? How long since it happened? Why is the love unhappy? I hope it is no French woman. Are the hindrances on the side of family, national hatred, or what?"
"I know nothing at all about it, my friend."
"You are positively insufferable with your know-nothingness," growled the old doctor. "You know all about this matter and you might confide in my discretion!"
"I repeat to you that my idea is founded upon a mere suspicion. You know Walter's reticence; he has never spoken a word to me on the subject. In any event, I urgently implore you not to take advantage of my indiscretion, and tell the Frau Doctorin--"
"My wife?" The doctor threw a glance at the door, which fortunately, he had closed behind him. "God forbid! That would be to set all the women of B. in an uproar! The professor has already become a hero to our ladies; if now, the nimbus of an unhappy love surrounds him, he will be overwhelmed by their romantic sympathy. Who would have thought this of our timid professor, when he sat here at his writing-desk, and I gave him lectures upon his health, which I warned him was going to ruin physically and mentally! Now he goes to the war, fights, makes verses, falls in love--it is most atrocious!"
"I must go," said Behrend, evidently anxious to shorten the interview. "You will excuse me for to-day."