sickening suspicion (for what is such heartbreak as a suspicion of
what we love?) came through the mind of August: WAS HIRSCHVOGEL
ONLY IMITATION?

"No, no, no, no!" he said to himself stoutly; though Hirschvogel
never stirred, never spoke, yet would he keep all faith in it!
After all their happy years together, after all the nights of
warmth and joy he owed it, should he doubt his own friend and
hero, whose gilt lion's feet he had kissed in his babyhood? "No,
no, no, no!" he said again, with so much emphasis that the Lady of
Meissen looked sharply again at him.

"No," she said, with pretty disdain; "no, believe me, they may
'pretend' forever. They can never look like us! They imitate even
our marks, but never can they look like the real thing, never can
they chassent de race."

"How should they?" said a bronze statuette of Vischer's. "They
daub themselves green with verdigris, or sit out in the rain to
get rusted; but green and rust are not patina; only the ages can
give that!"

"And MY imitations are all in primary colors, staring colors, hot
as the colors of a hostelry's signboard!" said the Lady of
Meissen, with a shiver.

"Well, there is a gres de Flandre over there, who pretends to be a
Hans Kraut, as I am," said the jug with the silver hat, pointing
with his handle to a jug that lay prone on its side in a corner.
"He has copied me as exactly as it is given to moderns to copy us.