CHAPTER XVI.
"Glad to see you, esteemed colleague! Kindest regards from Frau von Berkow, and here she sends you Bemperlein and Julius to look at; cut copies are not taken back by the publisher!"
With these words there entered a small pale gentleman, with spectacles on his nose, and dressed in an old-fashioned but neat costume. He might be thirty or more, and held a boy by the hand.
"Heartily welcome!" said Oswald, hastily rising from his corner of the sofa in which he had been sitting, lost in thought, and half embarrassed; he shook hands with the new-comer. His eye rested with deepest interest on the boy, the son of the woman he loved. Julius was a charming boy. The blouse of dark green velvet, which he had fastened around the waist with a broad leathern belt, gave him the appearance of a charming little page. Dark curls hung gracefully around his well-shaped head; his face was almost girlish in its beauty and delicacy, and Oswald trembled as he held his soft warm hand for a moment in his own and looked into his large light-brown eyes. He felt as if he had touched Melitta's hand, as if he had looked into Melitta's eyes.
"It is very kind in you, Mr. Bemperlein," he said, mastering his confusion, "to have found time to come and see me. To tell the truth, I partly expected you to-day, especially because Bruno thought it was absolutely impossible that Julius should leave without having said good-by to him."
Here the door opened and Bruno rushed in, a huge slice of bread and butter in his hand. "Hurrah, Julius, sugar man!" he cried. "Lucky that you came! I should have run after you to Grunwald and whipped you in the open street. There! take a bite! The last piece of bread and butter we shall share for a long time! And now come! Let us run once more through the garden and the wood. You are going to spend the evening here, Mr. Bemperlein?"
"Non Monseigneur!" replied the latter, who had sunk into a chair and was wiping the perspiration from his brow; "our moments are counted. You would, therefore, oblige me by not extending your excursions beyond the garden, and especially by not throwing Julius again into a ditch, as you did the last time."
"Julius, did I throw you into a ditch?"
"No; but you pulled me out of a ditch when I had fallen in."
"Well, then, come along, sugar man," cried Bruno, lifting the light boy in his arms and carrying him bodily out of the room.