The next day chance brought him face to face in the street with the young student who was so like Warren.  “Who knows?” thought Hermann; “fifteen or twenty years hence this young man may look no brighter than Warren does today.  Ah, life is not easy!  It has a way of saddening joyous looks, and imparting severity to smiling lips.  As for me, I have no real right to complain of my life.  I have lived pretty much like everybody; a little satisfaction, and then a little disappointment, turn by turn; and often small worries; and so my youth has gone by, I scarcely know how.”

On the 2d of October Hermann received a telegram from Hamburg announcing the arrival of Warren for the same evening.  At the appointed hour he went to the railway station to meet his friend.  He saw him get down from the carriage slowly, and rather heavily, and he watched him for a few seconds before accosting him.  Warren appeared to him old and broken-down, and even more feeble than he had expected to see him from his portrait.  He wore a travelling suit of gray cloth, so loose and wide that it hung in folds on the gaunt and stooping figure; a large wide-awake hat was drawn down to his very eyes.  The new-comer looked right and left, seeking no doubt to discover his friend; not seeing him, he turned his weary and languid steps towards the way out.  Hermann then came forward.  Warren recognized him at once; a sunny, youthful smile lighted up his countenance, and, evidently much moved, he stretched out his hand.  An hour later, the two friends were seated opposite to each other before a well-spread table in Hermann’s comfortable apartments.

Warren ate very little; but, on the other hand, Hermann noticed with surprise and some anxiety that his friend, who had been formerly a model of sobriety, drank a good deal.  Wine, however, seemed to have no effect on him.  The pale face did not flush; there was the same cold, fixed look in the eye; and his speech, though slow and dull in tone, betrayed no embarrassment.

When the servant who had waited at dinner had taken away the dessert and brought in coffee, Hermann wheeled two big arm-chairs close to the fire, and said to his friend: 

“Now, we will not be interrupted.  Light a cigar, make yourself at home, and tell me all you have been doing since we parted.”

Warren pushed away the cigars.  “If you do not mind,” said he, “I will smoke my pipe.  I am used to it, and I prefer it to the best of cigars.”

So saying, he drew from its well-worn case an old pipe, whose color showed it had been long used, and filled it methodically with moist, blackish tobacco.  Then he lighted it, and after sending forth one or two loud puffs of smoke, he said, with an air of sovereign satisfaction: 

“A quiet, comfortable room—­a friend—­a good pipe after dinner—­and no care for the morrow.  That’s what I like.”