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Blad was silent for some time, and when at last he spoke it was in a low voice.

“There’s something I should like to say to you,” he said quietly. “And I’m half afraid to begin. I’ve been thinking a lot, and some of it I mustn’t say at all. But I will say this: When we have been together anywhere—out in the country, or on the sea, or in the town—anywhere, I always had a feeling that we lived as it were on different levels, you and I. To me, you were always the born leader; I felt if you took it into your head to order me about, I should have to obey. Things seemed somehow to belong to you. Then at other times, I could feel as if you were a distinguished visitor—one can’t help these stray thoughts, you know—as if Nature herself put on her best and did all she could to please you—while I was just an ordinary person, not worth making a fuss about. I belonged to her, as one of her children, and could stray about unnoticed among the trees like any other creature in the forest; it never came into my head to look on her in that gay lordly way of yours. And sometimes it seemed you were the better off; sometimes that it was better to be as I was. It’s all only fancies, of course, but still it does prove one thing: that we are utterly different. I am quite content to live an ordinary uneventful life; as long as I can ramble about in Nature’s garden and cultivate the modest growths of my art, it is enough for me. I don’t care for anything that calls for greater energy than I generally give, whether it be the way of pleasure, or pain, or work. I’ve no ambition worth mentioning. I can sit in my garden, and enjoy the scent of the flowers, or go out in a boat, and watch the sunlight on the water; walk in the woods in spring and see the delicate green of the beech leaves against the sky—I am happy enough with such things. There are heaps of little trifling things of that sort that please me every day. But it’s all different with you. It may sound theatrical, perhaps, but it’s as if you had mountains—glaciers and volcanoes—in your soul. And I shouldn’t care to change with you—it’s all too big for me. But then again, if you were like me, I shouldn’t care about you. You must live and act in a different way; I see that. You could stand suffering better than I; I’m sure of that. But I’m not quite sure that you have the power of being really happy. Anyhow—well, you know I’m your friend, and always will be.”