[_Exit quickly. The music ceases_.]

BOLZ. Poor Schmock! [_At the door_.]

Ah, they are still walking through the hall. Ida is being spoken to,
she stops, Adelaide goes on--(_Excitedly_.) she's coming, she's coming
alone!

ADELAIDE (_makes a motion as though to pass the door, but suddenly
enters_. BOLZ _bows_). Conrad! My dear doctor!

[_Holds out her hand_. BOLZ _bends low over it_.]

ADELAIDE (_in joyous emotion_). I knew you at once from a distance.
Let me see your faithful face. Yes, it has changed but little--a scar,
browner, and a small line about the mouth. I hope it is from laughing.

BOLZ. If at this moment I feel like anything but laughing it is only a
passing malignity of soul. I see myself double, like a melancholy
Highlander. In your presence my long happy childhood passes bodily
before my eyes. All the joy and pain it brought me I feel as vividly
again as though I were still the boy who went into the wood for you in
search of wild adventures and caught robin-red-breasts. And yet the
fine creature I see before me is so different from my playmate that I
realize I am only dreaming a beautiful dream. Your eyes shine as
kindly as ever, but--(_Bowing_.) I have scarcely the right still to
think of old dreams.

ADELAIDE. Possibly I, too, am not so changed as you think; and changed
though we both be, we have remained good friends, have we not?