"Hurrah! my boy!" cried the intruder, with outstretched arms. "I've been looking for you everywhere for a year past, and it's been as difficult as searching for a needle in a bottle of hay. Even now I mightn't have tracked you out if that pious little girl Helene had not given me a hint of your whereabouts."
It was the harum-scarum Felix, and the Turkish necktie of which the beloved had spoken, flapped over either shoulder in aggressive fly-away ends.
Boleslav returned the greeting more heartily than a few weeks ago he would have thought possible; since his meeting with Helene, the old home and the old life had come back to him very distinctly, and his heart felt drawn to this once inseparable friend of his boyhood.
Felix did not stand on ceremony, but threw himself on the sofa, and as he stretched his legs on the leather cushions looked round him in amazed admiration. The room seemed to him the embodiment of luxury and magnificence.
"You are domiciled here like a prince in the 'Arabian Nights,'" he exclaimed; "that's what comes of being born a _Junker_, I suppose. I wish I was. Such as we have to rough it, and----"
He paused in order to shoot through his front teeth a stream of dark-brown saliva, a habit he had learnt from the sailors on the quays. After this, he frequently visited Boleslav's sequestered retreat, devoured the dainties his aunt sent up to him, borrowed money and books, and initiated him in the mysteries of life at the water's edge. In short, he conducted himself as do most "men of the world" between fifteen and nineteen years of age, who are apt to gain an ascendency over deeper and more thoughtful natures than their own.
Boleslav sometimes thought of making him his confidant in his love affair, but never, when it came to the point, could find the right words in which to express himself. So his secret remained, as he thought, buried in his heart of hearts. But one day Felix astounded him by saying--
"Don't think I am blind! I have discovered some time ago that you are head over heels in love with a certain little prude. She's pretty enough, but a bit too good for me."
The blood mounted swiftly and angrily to Boleslav's brow, and he demanded with dignity that henceforth no disrespectful word be spoken of the fair Helene in his presence. And Felix, though he made a contemptuous grimace, was careful not to offend again by any jibing allusion to his love.