He opened the door of a workshop which exhaled the odour of a thousand

more poisons. Here women were at work with the men, putting on varnish

and acids, rubbing and brushing busily. They looked haggard and tired

out. At the sight of Lilly they dropped their implements to stare at

her in blank amazement.

"One would have to begin here," she thought, "to win the confidence of

all." So she nodded at them pleasantly and spoke a few friendly words.

But her little advances were wrongly interpreted. They thought she

mocked them, and with an almost contemptuous grimace went back to their

work. Lilly's appearance in the packing-room, where women and children

alone were employed, produced a happier impression. The girls giggled,

whispered, and nudged each other. Only one woman, who was _enceinte_,

took no notice of her. She seemed hardly able to stand on her feet and

was near to sinking on the floor. She kept her relaxed pale lips

tightly compressed, her cheeks wore a hectic flush, and her arms moved

in feverish zeal as she wrapped one sheet of paper after the other

round the limbs of the figures standing before her on the table,

swaying first to the right and then to the left under her touch.

"May I give her something?" asked Lilly, in an aside to Herr Dehnicke.

"She is being looked after," he answered uneasily, as if displeased,

and he quickly led the way to another door.

"This is where the figures are stored," he said, "until sold, with the

exception of those, naturally, that are made to order."

Lilly looked down a long dusky gallery and met an icy-cold draught.

Ranged on stands and shelves she saw endless regiments of ghostly

objects, dwarfs, gnomes, monsters, shapeless in their wrappings of

paper, yet looking somehow human, and as if they had been petrified by

accident.

"How strange this is!" said Lilly with a slight shiver, and she

prepared to walk down the narrow gangway, the windows of which were

covered with ice and frost-patterns.

The same moment she observed that her guide gave a start and seemed

suddenly to have lost his presence of mind. Then he walked before her

and barred the way.

"What has happened?" Lilly asked in surprise.

He coloured, and said: "We had better not go on. We'll go somewhere

where there's more of interest to see. There's nothing at all here."

He planted himself firmly in front of her so that Lilly could not catch

a glimpse of the shelves along the wall. Of course, this completely

aroused her curiosity.

"But I should like to go on," she said, and she assumed the defiant

naughty manner which generally gained her the day with him.

"No, no!" he exclaimed hurriedly. "There are secrets of business here

that I can reveal to no one. Even the employes are not allowed to come

in. I am very sorry, but I really cannot."

"Then you should not have brought me in at all," said Lilly, and she

turned back in high dudgeon.

He exhausted every excuse he could think of, his excitement made him

hoarse, and he coughed perpetually. He led her up the dirty steps again

and over the gorgeous mosaic floor of the courtyard to the shoddy

marble entrance, where a bitter wind was blowing.

"You'll catch cold," she said, wishing to hasten her departure.

A brilliant idea occurred to him. "The storeroom was not heated," he

said, "so I could not----"

"You should have thought of that sooner," Lilly retorted, as she gave

him her hand with a half-conciliating smile. She could not help pitying

his helpless confusion.

Nevertheless, she continued to feel hurt and slightly perturbed. The

day that she had joyfully looked forward to for months had ended with a

_contretemps_. And no matter how earnestly she pressed him afterwards,

she never could cajole Herr Dehnicke into unveiling the mystery of that

forbidden room in his warehouse.

CHAPTER VII

Lilly's health began to decline. She was troubled with lassitude,

headache, palpitations, and sleepless nights. The doctor called in at

Herr Dehnicke's instigation was a busy practitioner, who went the round

of innumerable houses every day. His eyes first took in the

arrangements of the flat--he seemed familiar with the setting--then

after a brief and cursory diagnosis, he prescribed social distractions,

exercise, and iron--any quantity of iron.

Social distractions were out of the question, and even walks were not

so easy to manage. Lilly had a distaste for strolling about alone, and

her only escort, Herr Dehnicke, evidently did not care to be seen too

often with her in the streets. He said he did not wish to compromise

her; but if the real reason was known, it was probably that he did not

care to make himself too conspicuous by appearing in public with a

companion whose beauty was so striking and uncommon.

For, whatever happened to her, in spite of all her heavy sorrows and

degrading humiliations, her boredom and unsatisfied cravings, nothing

detracted from the charm of her person. On the contrary, the soft milky

paleness which had succeeded the healthy golden-brown tint of her

complexion lent her a new loveliness. The great narrow, long-lashed

eyes with the heavy drooping lids, those enigmatic "Lilly eyes," had

now acquired a weary, languishing brilliance, as if they hid in their

depths a solution to all the painful problems of the universe. Her

figure, too, had returned to the regal splendour of its girlhood's

bloom, after having become too slight and thereby losing some of its

reposeful stateliness.

It was not astonishing, then, that many heads were turned to look back

at her and her lucky companion who, being shorter than she was,

provoked a kind of contempt as well as envy in the breast of the casual

passer-by. And as he was fully aware of this, Herr Dehnicke, the astute

man of business, to whom the idea of being the subject of gossip was

not pleasing or advantageous, preferred to hold his _tete-a-tete_ with

her indoors.

In the middle of February she received by post an invitation from Herr

Kellermann, whom she had not seen for months.

"Grand Studio Carnival

"Living Pictures, Opportunities for Flirtation, etc."

Here at last was something that promised to be entertaining, and Herr

Dehnicke, who chanced to be invited too, urged her to conquer her

shyness and accept.

When the day came, Lilly was so full of dread that she would gladly

have got out of the engagement. She beheld herself running the gauntlet

of a crowd of sneering strangers, who would exchange significant

glances with each other at her expense, and narrate the history of her

rise and fall in whispers. She saw herself given the cold shoulder and

made the object of derisive remark. She went through all the tortures

of the "unclassed," and felt as if she were doomed to bear the brand of

sin on her brow till the end of her days.

She selected from her Dresden gowns the loveliest that she possessed: a

white silk embroidered with gold vine-leaves and made in the Empire

style, which in the meantime had become the height of fashion. She

wound a gold chain round her head like a diadem, and threw a filmy

Oriental richly worked veil lightly over her hair. If necessity arose,

she could use it as a covering for her bare neck and shoulders.

Finally, she felt sure that she looked hideous and abominably _outre_,

and that this alone was sufficient ground for not showing herself.

Only when her escort appeared and held on to the handle of the door

with an astounded exclamation, at the sight of her in evening dress,

did she take heart.

"Shall I do?" she asked with a timid smile, which implored approval.

He could not answer, but plunged about the room breathing heavily, and

half choking over his incoherent words. Lilly had no difficulty in

understanding what he wanted to say.

In the _coupe_, as she sat beside him, another attack of terror seized

her.

"You promise not to leave me?" she besought him. "You'll stay with me

all the time, won't you, and not allow any stranger to speak to me?"

He promised everything. They went up the four flights of stairs, an

ascent she was familiar with. The landing had been turned into a

ladies' cloak-room, where were hanging imposing furs and lace evening

coats that humbled you to the dust to look at.

She clung to his arm. "Now I'm in for it," she thought.

The big ante-room, which was always dark in the daytime and used as

kitchen, bedroom, and dining-room by Herr Kellermann, had been

transformed with fir-trees and candles into a rose-lit, fairy-tale

forest, in which couples sat close together on bamboo seats, smiling

and whispering. They were so absorbed in each other that they had no

attention to spare for the new-comers.

A tremendous reception awaited Lilly in the studio itself, which was

filled with a brilliant, glittering throng. There was a chorus of "Ah!"

then profound stillness, and a path was made, down which the pair

seemed expected to make a triumphal progress. Lilly tried to hide

behind her companion, but as he only came up to her nose she did not

succeed.

Then Herr Kellermann hurried forward to welcome them. He was in a brown

velvet get-up, consisting of knee-breeches, lounge-jacket, and Phrygian

cap. Most of the company, indeed, seemed to be dressed in anything that

they thought specially original and becoming to their style of beauty.

"Goddess, Queen, welcome!" cried the host in a voice for everyone to

hear, and then he fell to kissing her gloved hand from wrist to elbow.

Next he asked to be allowed to take her round and show her how

excellent were the arrangements of his new Court of Love. And she

followed him, after warning her friend not to go far away, but to be

within hail.

Electric lamps had been hung in the open air directly over the

skylight, converting it into a many-coloured, star-studded sky. On

looking up the effect was really as if a thousand tiny suns were

shining down out of the night. On the left gable-side of the room,

where the roof sloped, was an evergreen trellis draped with rugs and

divided into several little arbours, before which hung curtains of

Japanese beads. Each of these was significantly placarded.

The first was called something which made Lilly turn a shocked look of

inquiry at her guide. Whereupon he replied, smiling:

"That's nothing, merely a beginning for flappers and afternoon-tea

souls like you. What do you say to this, now?" he added, pointing to

the placard over the next arbour.

"Dreadfully wicked!" she exclaimed, really scandalised, and Kellermann

shook with laughter. He read aloud to her the inscriptions over four

more arbours, and at every one Lilly's cheeks grew hotter. "Worse and

worse," she thought, but said nothing.

"Now I will take you over to the 'Criminal Side,'" he said, and steered

her through the crush, which set up a hum at her reappearance. But it

was devoid of all envy, hatred, and malice. It was rather an ovation, a

suppressed cheering. Her breast expanded. A slight, humble sensation of

joy crept through her body like warm wine. She threw back the ends of

her tinsel veil, feeling she no longer need be ashamed of her naked

throat and shoulders. In the glances that met hers she read that no one

would despise her.

She did not reach the "Criminal Side," for there were so many

interruptions by the way. Man after man wanted to be introduced to her,

and Herr Kellermann was fully occupied in saying their names. From this

moment the whole carnival became perfectly unreal, a dreamland, a

fairyland meadow, in which large-eyed flowers bloomed, where rosy mists

and heavy perfumes saturated the senses, where laughter, whispering,

and unheard-of compliments mingled--where all only existed for her

amusement, to be admired, petted, and loved by her.

Yes, and she did love them all, these men and women, just as they came.

All of them were noble and good, sparkling with merry wit, full of

eagerness to do little friendly services; golden souls, each awaking a

new hope and bringing a new delight.

She felt her cheeks flaming, her eyes shining, with the intoxication of

the hour. And now and then she would see, as if reflected in a mirror,

a response to her own happiness in the eyes she looked into. This was

no longer a strange Lilly, an animated puppet, but it was herself, the

real Lilly, who laughed and made bright repartees as she romped and

passed from arm to arm, feeling regret at each transition. This was

herself--twofold, threefold herself. And, when sometimes the man with

whom she conversed became too bold, and the _double entendre_ behind

his jokes transgressed the bounds of decency, so that she grew alarmed,

she had only to turn round to find her friend somewhere near, ever

ready to rescue her from an awkward situation. That gave her a truly

blissful sense of security, a feeling of being hidden under a wing and

taken care of, so that she could afford to be merrier still--even

hilarious--and take the most audacious sallies in good part.

Once she heard behind her the question: "Whose mistress is she? The

lucky dog!"

The answer came contemptuously: "A little polisher, or something of the

kind. He's over there."

For a moment this speech gave her food for reflection, though how could

she possibly be supposed to know to whom it referred? In the

excitement, the incident soon passed from her mind.

What lots of people she got to know!

There were young fops in swallow-tails and white brocaded silk

waistcoats, who paid her wild attention, and asked incidentally though

with patent eagerness which day in the week was her "_jour_" for

receiving. She was sorry to say she hadn't a day, she lived so very

quietly.

There were sombre pessimists with long lank hair and enormous ties, who

loved to converse on such topics as "spiritual high-pressure,"

"specific gravity of individual affinities," and it did Lilly's soul

good to hear them. One of them addressed her as "Excellency," and when

she asked why he did, he seemed amazed, and stuttered he had heard that

she was---- Then, quickly correcting himself, he turned it off with the

wretched joke that as she excelled all women present, he could not

think of a more fitting form of address.

There was among others a well-preserved old man, a fast liver, whose

signature Lilly had read with reverence on many a beautiful picture. It

would have given her greater pleasure to kiss his hand than to have him

dancing round her, aping youthful gallantry.

There were many others who aroused her curiosity, but whose rank and

character she could not learn. There was even a real prince, a pale,

fair, extremely young fellow, who dared not ask to be introduced to

Lilly because his mistress kept guard on him and would not let him out

of her sight. The women, of course, were not so gushing to her as the

men, though the one or two whose acquaintance she made were very warm

in their overtures of friendship.

A brunette, with a small, voluptuously beautiful figure, bright

restless eyes, and a seductive smile, approached her with: "You and I

ought to be friends. I'll introduce you to my particular pal, and we'll

have supper together at a little table, and be quite a cosy family

party."

Another, a very thin young girl, taller than most of the men present,

with wells of blue fire for eyes, swept about in long white

"impressionist" draperies like a figure in a dream, undisturbed by the

tumult in which she moved. She spoke without moving her head, and

smiled without curving her lips. She was a fair young Dane, who had

come to study painting and to "live life," as she expressed it.

"Who are you?" she asked Lilly. "You are different from the rest. You

must have strong arms, if you do not want to be washed along by the

current."

With a bold gesture, she flung back the wide sleeves of her gown, and

displayed two marble-white perfect arms, with wonderfully supple

movements. Then she glided on.

A flaxen-haired, extremely graceful woman, no longer young, whose

pretty, laughing face was burnt as brown as a berry from exposure to

sub and wind, held out her hand to Lilly with a merry twinkle in her

eye, as if they had known each other for years.

"How sweet you are, and how beautiful!" she said softly. "We've all

flown into this cage and don't know why; and we don't even know whether

we shall get out unhurt or not. But where do you hail from? I am----"

She mentioned the name--the name of a great musician who in the house

of Kilian Czepanek had been a kind of demi-god.

"Yes, I am Welter's former wife.... Positively I am," she added gaily,

and again took the arm of the man she was with and turned away.

"A sort of '_Generalin_,' like me," thought Lilly.

There were thrown in a few married couples, mostly very young and

foolish, who herded for a long time timidly together and then frisked

wildly about like monkeys let loose.

One pair, however, seemed to have been invited as a practical joke. The

husband was a thorough-paced beery Philistine, his spouse a fat, stolid

person in a high black silk. Someone told Lilly that he was the

landlord of the house, who was bribed by an invitation to the carnival

to countenance the use of his top floor for such a purpose. The two, to

all appearances, were not feeling at all _de trop_, and always found a

laughing audience for their coarsest jokes.

Towards ten o'clock, when Lilly was deep in an abstruse discussion with

one of the long-haired and unwashed guests on the fallibility of human

values, a sudden howl was raised, first by one throat and then by

another, till it swelled to a chorus; the words "hungry" and "food"

alone were to be distinguished.

Herr Kellermann's voice was raised in soothing remonstrance above the

clamour. The slices of bread-and-dripping which the guests were to be

given for supper--a poor devil of a painter could not rise to anything

more _recherche_--were not quite ready. Meanwhile, would the ladies and

gentlemen kindly be patient? Those who were absolutely starving might,

however, still their hunger by a visit to the "Poison" arbour, where

they could obtain as many arsenic sandwiches and prussic acid tartlets

as they liked.

The whole mass of human beings now made a rush for the "Criminal Side,"

where, in order to play at "_crimes passionels_," a complete arsenal of

deadly weapons had been collected. Gallows were suspended from the

glass ceiling, ladders led down to bottomless pits, and cannons went

off. The company greedily snatched the poisoned viands, and people who

didn't even know each other took bites out of the same sandwich.

The supper itself soon followed. Under the fir-trees of the ante-room a

buffet was erected, piled with mountains of York hams, cold game-pies,

lobster salads, mayonnaise salmon, and every conceivable savoury

waiting an assault. The assault when it came was so furious that though

the buffet, which was planted against a wall, resisted it, the forest

of fir-trees collapsed branches snapped off, trunks cracked, twigs flew

about, and among the _debris_ waltzed a crush of laughing, swearing

revellers.

Then the brilliant idea occurred to someone to hurl the whole forest

downstairs to the next floor. The Chinese lanterns were put out, and

soon the uprooted firs were flying over the stairs tree after tree, in

spite of the protests of the landlord, who was afraid of his other

tenants being disturbed by the noise. The ladies' light dresses were

covered with pine-needles, and pine-needles stuck in their hair and

necklaces. Everything smelt of Christmas. It was difficult to eat for

laughing, and there were not tables and chairs enough to go round. To

balance their plates, couples crouched closely together on the stairs,

and supplies kept dangling down on them from the buffet above. Some

venturesome spirits even climbed the trees and roosted like birds in

the branches, while food was handed up to them on the end of forks and

walking-sticks by charitable souls.

Lilly, half-dead from laughing, was seated on one of the stairs

surrounded by unknown men, all of whom craved to be fed by her. She had

never been so happy in her life, and would have liked it to last for

ever; her only care was that all the men she was feeding wouldn't get

enough.

At the conclusion of the supper came the _piece de resistance_ in the

shape of cream kisses. They were swung through the air hooked to the

end of long fishing-rods, and every guest had to try and catch his or

her share with the mouth. Hands were forbidden, and those who used them

were rapped on the knuckles.

This sport, which at first excited tornadoes of mad glee, had soon to

be abandoned, because the whipped cream dropped from its cases on to

the ladies' necks and dresses. Lilly's Empire gown got its baptism of

cream, and one of the men on his knees kissed away the stains.

When a trumpet sounded, to call the revellers back to the studio,

everyone was sorry, especially Lilly.

It consoled her to catch sight again of her friend, whom she had

entirely forgotten. Leaning on his arm, she related, with a radiant

face and half-inarticulate from laughter, her merry experiences.

It was then she noticed that the eyes of all those who were near seemed

bent on her with a strange seriousness and as if moved to sudden

compassion. But she was too busy talking to think much about it. She

begged him to stay at her side when the recitations began. She was

tired of playing the fool, she said, and wanted now something homelike.

He gave her arm a grateful pressure.

"Why are you trembling?" she asked him in astonishment.

"It's nothing," he answered lightly.

The first reciter was one of the long-haired collarless brigade, who

had been asked to open the programme with a solemn and weighty chorale.

He declaimed an ode entitled "Super-smoke," which was Greek to Lilly,

but she supposed it was very fine, because at the end there was an

outbreak of stormy applause among the men.

"Bravo, bravo! Super-smoke, more Super-smoke!" they shouted.

The long-haired collarless one, who took this for an encore, bowed,

highly flattered, and started off again: "Super-smoke, an ode." But he

got no further. Roars of "That's enough! that's enough!" came from all

sides, and it appeared that the men had been only expressing a desire

for something smokable when they had called out "More Super-smoke."

The next to appear on the rostrum was a slender, exceedingly elegant

person with a short pointed brown beard and glittering monocle. He was

a Dr. Salmoni, to whom Lilly had been introduced. With a melancholy

smile he held his hand close to his nose and examined his finger-nails,

as he said that it was his purpose to draw up an intellectual synopsis

of the evening's entertainment, and to throw in a few remarks on the

"destructive construction of social formlessness."

This prefaced a volley of impertinent sarcasms and insulting

personalities, intended to annihilate host and guests. Though she could

not understand his hits, Lilly felt inclined to blush for those who

came under the fire of his scathing satire. Yet, extraordinary to

relate, no one seemed to mind; on the contrary, the very people who

were being lashed by his tongue the most were loudest in jubilant

applause.

"Happy world!" thought Lilly, "where nothing hurts, and the most

abominable sins are titles to honour."

Her own false step, from which she had so long suffered as from a

poisoned wound, suddenly appeared to her in the light of a mere

childish prank. "Wasn't it very silly of me to take it so to heart?"

she thought, and gave herself a downward stroke with her two hands, as

if she would thereby shake off every vestige of her old manacles.

The elegant little doctor knew, too, how to flatter. Each fair lady got

from him her bonbon, spiced with pepper, and when he went on to speak

of a lotus-flower that had drifted there this evening from fairyland,

and still seemed shy of the full glare of publicity being thrown on

her, Lilly again became conscious that she attracted every eye.

"Let her take courage," he went on. "She may count on any of us, I'll

assert, to welcome night dreamily in her company if she wants someone."

Enthusiastic clapping from the men endorsed this speech, and Lilly did

not feel a bit ashamed.

When Dr. Salmoni had finished and was shaken hands with and

congratulated by all, especially those who had bled most under his

lash, he came up to Lilly and said in a low voice:

"I pray for your forgiveness, gracious lady, for having named you in

the same breath as this herd. There ought to be a tacit understanding

between people of our position, without the necessity of making

advances to each other. But I was sick of just cracking a whip, and you

know I am not always a mountebank."

"People in our position," he had said. That flattered Lilly, and raised

her to the same level as this very clever and superior man, who, as he

put his eyeglass away in his waistcoat pocket, regarded her with his

sharp grey eyes as if he wanted to tear her heart to tatters.

A swarthy youth of mercurial temperament next sang couplets to his own

accompaniment on the mandoline. He began with the romantic air of a

troubadour.

The third verse, which ended in French, was so daringly outspoken that

Lilly hardly ventured to understand it.

The song was received with such ecstasy that it seemed as if the

applause would never stop. Lilly wondered that she felt so little

disgusted. Nothing seemed to disgust her any more. Her eyes half

closed, she leaned back in her chair and let lights, sounds,

obscenities, laughter, and cheers ripple over her as in a dream.

From time to time she looked round for her escort. He was standing

close behind her chair, smiling reassuringly. But he kept silent. A red

patch burned on his forehead and his eyes were bloodshot. It may have

been that he had drunk too much champagne. She herself had only sipped

a glass, but her head felt quite dizzy.

The songs and recitations came to an end at two o'clock, and now the

fun waxed fast and furious and transgressed all limits. Everyone

tussled, kissed, drank, picked quarrels, and fought duels. Lovers

pretended to stab themselves and were carried out lifeless. The cannons

fired off crackers. Outside the different arbours orations were held by

various guests. One by a dainty youth in a Greek costume hired from a

paid model, delivered in a high falsetto, dealt with pseudo-physiological

problems. Into the arbour of "Monstrosities" some one had pushed the

beery Philistine landlord and his corpulent wife, where they kissed and

caressed each other to order, in full view of the company, who applauded

vociferously.

Lilly's head went round; it all buzzed, screeched, and hammered in her

brain like an agonising nightmare.

"We had better go now," Herr Dehnicke's voice urge behind her.

She rose to her feet and stretched herself with a shudder.

This had been life, life----

She followed him out, and at the top of the stairs Herr Kellermann, who

had observed their going, came running after them. His collar hung open

and limp above his velvet lounge jacket, his cheeks were glazed and

puffy. He looked like young Falstaff.

He exchanged a glance with Dehnicke, who nodded as much as to say, "It

went off very well," and then disappeared in search of her wraps.

"And how about the chained beauty?" asked Herr Kellermann, turning to

Lilly. "Have you quite forgotten her?

"Quite," replied Lilly, with a languid smile.

"And you'll never come?"

"Never!"

"But I tell you that you will come," he said, leading her to the side

of the staircase. "You will come when the chains have cut into your

flesh and you don't know----"

Dehnicke returned with the wraps, and he said no more.

Lilly was in far too happy and complacent a mood to attribute any

significance to these words, which in the mouth of this bacchic faun

sounded like a joke. She simply laughed at him and passed on.

* * * * *

Her excited brain quieted down; she leaned against her friend's

shoulder as they descended the stairs, airily swung her hips, and

hummed to herself. The whole world seemed melting in a soft fragrant

harmonious twilight. Fresh snow had fallen and the moon was shining.

Dehnicke's carriage was waiting for them.

"Let us drive to the Tiergarten," said Lilly, drinking in her fill of

the snow-laden air.

She threw herself back on the cushions of the _coupe_ sang and beat

time with her feet on the floor.

He sat silently in his corner and looked out of the window.

"Do say something," she implored.

"I have nothing to say," he said, and studiously looked beyond her with

his red, bleary eyes.

The carriage rolled noiselessly along under the snow-covered trees,

which every now and then sent down a shower of silvery stars on to

their laps.

A drowsy lethargy came over her.

"I should like to drive on like this for ever," she whispered, seeking

a support for her head.

Then it seemed suddenly as if Walter's arm was round her waist and as

if her left cheek rested against Walter's throat, as once in those

blissful November nights.

But how did Walter come here now? She started up, wide awake again.

This was not Walter beside her. She was under no delusion as to who it

was. She was ashamed to change her position, and lay with wide-open

eyes for quite a long time, listening to the beating of his heart--how

it beat, right up his arm!

"He will not demand the price which it is customary with our

compatriots to ask of pretty women," Walter had written.

Now here he was demanding it with all his might.

With what contempt Walter would look down from his picture at her when

she stepped into the lamplight of her corner drawing-room half an hour

later! Walter who passed with everyone as her betrothed, even with this

man into whose arms she had slipped, Walter, to whom she must be

faithful and true if she hoped for salvation in this life.

It was really heavenly, nevertheless, to be lying thus. She felt as if

she belonged somewhere again, and how terrible her loneliness had been!

Still, it was no good.

So she moved cautiously, as if she was afraid of hurting him, and freed

herself from his arm, to take refuge against the side cushions.

"Why don't you stay?" he asked, stammering like an inebriated man.

"Weren't you feeling comfortable?"

She shook her head.

He went on asking her with passionate vehemence, but she would not

answer, feeling that every word she spoke would commit her still

further.

Then he caught her hand, that hung down passively, and pressed it.

"I mayn't," she whispered, withdrawing her hand. "Neither may you."

"Why mayn't we?"

"Because you would bitterly regret it afterward when you had to render

account to him, if you had abused your trust."

"_Him_! Whom do you mean?"

"Whom?" she echoed. "Why, whom else could I mean?... Haven't you said a

hundred times that you are only his deputy, that you----"

A laugh interrupted her, a hoarse guilty laugh. He had clasped his

hands round his knees, and laughed and breathed deeply and laughed

again, like someone relieved from an intolerable burden.

A horrible dread gradually became a certainty within her.

"It was all untrue?" she faltered, staring at him.

"All! It was all nonsense from beginning to end, a tissue of humbug," he

cried. "He wrote to me once, only once, before he left Germany. 'Take

up with her; it would be a pity if she went to the dogs.' Nothing more,

not another word.... There, now you know.... I've got it off my mind.

It's been a jolly heavy load, I can tell you.... But what was I to do?

Having begun, I had to go on."

He flung up the window and leaned out, panting hard.

She wanted to ask why he had done it. But she didn't dare. She knew

what the answer must be. One thing stood out with appalling

distinctness, and that was her helplessness and utter inability to save

herself. She was putting herself in his hands. She was living in his

flat, living on his money. She looked at the situation from his point

of view. She was what he had designed she should be--his mistress, his

creature, and his property.

Oh, why couldn't she throw herself into the river?

She wrenched open the carriage door and put one foot on the step, but

he dragged her back and slammed the door to.

"Be reasonable," he remonstrated. "Don't behave like a madwoman."

Then she burst out crying. Not since the time of her divorce had her

sobs been so pitiful, so heart-broken and full of bitterness. At

intervals his voice seemed to reach her from a long way off, but she

could hear nothing, see nothing, understand nothing. She could only

cry, cry; as if in crying lay salvation, as if trouble and distress

would flee away with her tears.

The carriage stopped. She felt herself lifted out. He had the latch-key

in his pocket. Supported by him, she staggered up the stairs, and

thought to herself over and over again, "Why didn't you throw yourself

into the river?"

He led her to the sofa, settled her in its corner, and turned on the

lights. Then he loosened the fastenings of her cloak, and lifted the

scarf from her hair.

She lay now in a state of complete exhaustion, and stared indifferently

at the table-cloth. The little bullfinch was awake and piped her a

welcome.

"It is getting late," she heard Herr Dehnicke say, "and the carriage is

waiting. But I cannot go till I have justified my conduct and explained

how it has all happened."

"That really makes no difference to me," she said, shrugging her

shoulders.

"I loved you long before," he began--"long before I knew you--when you

were still our colonel's wife."

She looked up in surprise. As he stood there in his short tight evening

coat, plucking nervously at the fringe of the table-cover with the

joyless, beseeching expression on his round face, master though he was,

she felt as if she saw him for the first time.

"I was called out that summer for the man[oe]uvres," he continued, "and

heard nothing else talked about at the Casino but you. Even the ladies

of the regiment were full of you. Your photographs were passed round,

for some of the men snapped you on the sly.... I recognised you at once

from the photographs. Yes, I can truthfully assert that I loved you

then. What's more, after Prell's letter told me that you were to come

into my life, what plans for winning you didn't I work out in that year

and a half! Then at last you turned up at my warehouse, and you

exceeded my wildest expectations. But I lost hope when I saw what a

great lady you had become, and how much you still thought of Walter.

Though I know I am not a bad fellow, I haven't much self-confidence,

and to have you for a mistress seemed too great luck to be dreamed of."

Now that he came out with the word "mistress" for the first time, an

intense bitterness welled up within her.

"To have me for a wife," she thought, "that is something not to be

dreamed of, evidently." And she laughed out loud.

He took her laugh as a sign that she was too modest to accept his

compliment, and he worked himself up into still greater enthusiasm.

Did she think that any of the women in whose society they had been that

evening were worthy to lick her shoes? Had she no conception of how

immeasurably she outshone everything that bore the name of woman?

Then from her tearful eyes came the question that pride and shame

prevented her expressing in words. This time he must have understood,

for he suddenly broke off in what he was saying, clasped his hands to

his head, and ran up and down the room half sobbing. She heard him

ejaculate: "Can't ... I can't ... it wouldn't do."

"Well, if he can't, he can't," she thought, and, with her face resting

on her palms, she stared at him wistfully.

He came now and stood in front of her, struggled to speak, but choked

over his words, and then he resumed his racing up and down the room.

She caught phrases like, "My mother ... would never consent ...

ruination to the business," and then again the refrain, "I can't; no, I

can't; it wouldn't do ..."

"He is quite right," she thought, "anyone like me ... how could he?"

And with a feeling of final renunciation, she collapsed in a heap.

Shocked, he hurried to her side, leaned over her, and tried to stroke

her hands; but she thrust him from her. At a loss to find words to

vindicate his miserable subterfuge, he took up the thread at the point

where her laugh had interrupted it.

"Do believe me, dearest friend, when I say that I had given up all

thoughts of myself. I swear that I wanted no reward, and subsequently

acted for your good alone. My one desire was to preserve you from

sinking to the lowest depths. I know from experience how many have done

so; a few years, no more, and they either go on the streets, or grow

more and more hideous and careworn ... and then it is impossible to

tell what they were once.... And that the same fate should not befall

you, I hit on the idea about the cheque and wrote to my American

agents. Your falling in with it was such a joy to me that I didn't

sleep a wink for two nights. I knew I had saved you from ruin."

"Ruin?" queried Lilly; "what do you mean? Before the cheque came I had

earned quite a respectable sum by my art. You yourself helped; you

yourself said if I persevered----"

She paused, filled with sudden anxiety at the thought that if it came

to a rupture between them to-night her one and only prospect of making

a living would be gone.

Not a word of reassurance came from him. In stubborn silence he plucked

at the fringe of the table-cloth.

"Please speak. Have you entirely forgotten all you've done for me?"

He pulled himself erect. "If you must know all," he said with a shrug

of the shoulders, "perhaps it's as well; from this evening we'll start

clear."

"Is there anything else, then?" Lilly cried in ever-increasing dismay.

"Do you remember the day you came over the factory--I made you turn

back in the storeroom?"

"Yes, but----"

"And afterwards I made the excuse that the place was not heated."

"I remember perfectly. But what has it to do with my work?"

"If you had gone a few steps further you would have seen all your glass

plaques--fifty-six in all--the last not even unpacked."

She looked up at him as if he were her executioner. Then she sank back

and buried her face in the sofa. She had no more tears to shed, but the

soft darkness of the cushions did her eyes good. She wanted not to see,

hear, or think any more--only to die as soon as possible, before

starvation and disgrace overtook her.

There was a long silence. She thought he must have gone, when she felt

his hand caressing her shoulder, and heard his voice in trembling,

pleading appeal say, "Dear, dear, dearest of friends, tell me what else

could I have done? Could I deprive you of your one interest and

resource? Could I tell you the things were unsaleable rubbish,

amateurishly executed? I saw how absolutely wrapped up you were in it

for a time, and I let it go on till it died a natural death.... I said

to myself, when her circumstances are easier she won't care about it

any longer. And wasn't I right? You haven't done a stroke for the last

month or so, have you? Dearest one, do consider; what have I done that

is so bad? I rescued you from a life of degrading penury. I found you a

little home in which you have spent a few happy months free from care,

and I didn't ask for so much as a kiss. If you like, go back to Frau

Laue to-morrow, just as if nothing had happened, or stay quietly here

till you have found some employment to suit you. You shall not be

troubled by my society. I needn't come to see you.... When I leave you

to-night...."

He could not go on. When, after a moment of silence, she glanced up,

curious and anxious to see what he was doing, she beheld him sitting at

the table, or rather half-lying across it, with his head buried in his

arms, while his shoulders were convulsed by noiseless sobs.

She went and stood beside him, and was moved to fresh tears. They

coursed down her cheeks. She was so sorry; oh, how sorry she was!

Then she laid her hand gently on his head. "You may comfort yourself,

dear friend," she said, "with the thought that it is far, far worse for

me than for you. Then, you see, I have no one else." And she shuddered,

thinking of the loneliness that was coming.

He straightened himself and silently put out his hand for his hat. His

eyes were more bloodshot and more prominent than before, and his head

drooped now quite to one side.

Oh, how sorry she was for him!

"Good-bye," said he, pressing her hand, "and thank you."

"I'll write to you," she replied, "when I have thought it all over

to-night. Probably I shall leave here to-morrow early."

"Just as you wish," he said.

As he took up his overcoat something long and round, wrapped in gold

and silver tinsel, fell on the floor. She picked it up. It was a

monster cracker. Both could not help laughing.

"What a sad end to the merry carnival!" she said.

He sighed. "I may hope, at least, that you enjoyed it?"

"What does it matter now whether I did or not?" she said deprecatingly.

"It matters a great deal, because the whole affair was got up

especially in your honour?"

"What! in my honour?"

"Do you suppose that Kellermann, who earns at the most a hundred marks

a week, could afford to give an entertainment like that? The doctor

ordered you amusement, and as I was not able, owing to the position in

which we were placed, to offer you any direct, I commissioned

Kellermann to ..."

She opened her eyes to their full width. He loved her like this!

"You dear, kind man!" she said, and rested her head for a moment

lightly against his shoulder.

He flung his arms round her quickly and eagerly as if he were afraid

someone might take her from him the next moment. He trembled from head

to foot, and his tears rolled down on her forehead.

As he still did not dare to kiss her, she voluntarily offered him her

lips.

"The third," she thought to herself. She glanced up and met Walter's

eyes looking down on her from the wall, full of supercilious contempt,

exactly as she had feared in the carriage. She pointed to the picture

with a gesture of terror and aversion.

"To-morrow we'll move it up to the attic," he said. And as they were

now reconciled, and had a great deal to say to each other, and it was

half-past three, the carriage was sent away.

CHAPTER VIII

Once more a new life began for Lilly. It was all over with her dreaded

loneliness. Regularly every afternoon Herr Dehnicke arrived at

tea-time. But he was "Herr Dehnicke" no longer. He was Richard, a dear

sweet, beloved Richard, who was received with open arms in the hall,

against whose knees she leant on the floor of the drawing-room, and

from whose brow the little lines of care were smoothed away with a

caressing, "Don't frown, dearest."

How absurd it had been to hoard up her love! You could squander and

squander, and always have heaps more to spare. The _grande dame_ and

"gracious baroness" pose was whistled down the wind. Now it was she who

stooped and made herself small, and asked to be scolded and punished,

who looked out fearfully for every shadow of displeasure on his face,

and tried to read his wishes before they were uttered. Above all, she

wanted to show that she was grateful--oh, so grateful!--for his

goodness, and his tenderness in saving her.

No wonder, then, that his attitude of adoring reverence gradually

altered, that he began to be exigeant, at times even a little

irritable, assuming the airs of a married man, and reminding her of the

benefits he had bestowed on her only very occasionally, it was true,

but often enough to convert humility that at first was spontaneous into

a duty.

Since Lilly had become his mistress his relations to the outside world

had undergone a complete change, so that his whole life was differently

ordered. In place of the priggish manufacturer of bronze wares, ever

vigilant of his middle-class reputation, he had become a recklessly

fast man of the world.

He, who once had been shy of appearing with Lilly in the streets or

park, now gloried in exhibiting himself to the public as her cavalier.

He bought, instead of the serviceable old brougham, the latest thing in

luxurious victorias, in which he delighted to drive with her along

Unter den Linden to the Tiergarten. He selected for their evening

amusement the most fashionable places of entertainment in Berlin, and

took seats where they were certain to attract attention from every part

of the house. He sat in the front of the stage-box with a swelling

shirt-front, his chin carefully shaved, his hands perfectly gloved, and

strove to meet the opera-glasses levelled at himself and companion with

a _blase_ indifferent smile.

He ordered his clothes of the London tailors who in spring and autumn

visit Berlin in search of custom. He sported a monocle, and stuck his

pocket-handkerchief inside his left cuff. The officer was now more than

ever strongly marked in him, and he tried to emulate the effeminate

charms of the fops in the Guards.

In brief, all his endeavours were directed to proving himself worthy of

a mistress of Lilly's calibre. He soon discovered that possession of so

perfect a creature, instead of injuring him, cast an undreamed-of

glamour over his career, even enhancing the prosperity of his business

more than all his expensive redecorations had been able to do.

The world said: if the senior partner in the firm of Liebert & Dehnicke

could afford such an extravagance, it must be doing brilliantly. And

many a dealer who formerly had favoured his rivals in the trade now

came to him, acting on those mysterious motives of suggestion, the laws

of which have puzzled the psychologists and historians of all times. He

was addressed with increased respect, yet with that confidential air of

jovial banter which the world adopts towards a man of proved steadiness

and principle when he is caught tripping. He was much more interesting

than in the days of his prosaic virtue. People who before had troubled

little about him, and had scarcely even spoken to him, now asked when

they were to meet him out of business hours, and hinted that they

wouldn't mind making a night of it in his company. Such overtures,

indeed, became as common as the Liebert & Dehnicke bronzes.

"By rights, you and your expenses ought to be charged to the business

accounts," he said once, smiling at Lilly, who learnt not to resent

such tactless speeches.

It had become a matter of habit to go out somewhere of an evening three

or four times a week, and Lilly quickly got to know every pleasure in

the Berlin vortex of dissipation. It was too late this winter for the

public balls, at which mysterious women who have lost caste masquerade

in silken dominoes. But to compensate for this there were the variety

theatres of lax observance, where the latest and spiciest obscenities

from the Parisian boulevards were diluted and dished up and offered to

hungry pleasure-lovers as highly stimulating to the appetite. There

were the night cafes, where pruriency was draped in literary tags, and

flighty women escaped from the restraints of middle-class

respectability, competed with the professional music-hall stars for the

palm of vulgarity. They frequented bars and grill-rooms and back

parlours of fashionable restaurants to which the police forbade lock

and key, and where, under the scornfully smiling eyes of correct

waiters, dull orgies were held. Lastly came those brilliantly lighted

cafes, dense with blue cigarette-smoke, where jaded nerves seek a final

pick-me-up in association with prostitution as it parades its wares for

sale in the market-place and on the house-tops.

For some time Lilly protested against these distractions; for her

senses still aspired to a different and higher kind of enjoyment. She

cherished, too, vague feelings of regret that this life of dissipation

was drawing her further and further away from those laurel flanked

stairs, the goal of her secret longing. But when she saw that every

wish she expressed for quiet was met with sullen opposition, she slowly

abandoned the idea, and relegated all her dreams of better things to a

distant future, when she might look forward to a possibility of their

being fulfilled. She dared not let her imagination stray further.

Besides, how amusing and fascinating nearly always was this new life!

She had every reason to be content with it.

They were not often alone together. There were acquaintances wherever

they went. They constantly met Kellermann's carnival guests again. They

would fall in with one another informally or make appointments

beforehand. They formed a little set of themselves, to which new-comers

were always hanging on.

One of the elect was that seductive little dark woman with the unsteady

bright eyes and the silly laugh, who at the carnival had wanted to make

a family party with her friend and Lilly at supper. She was called Frau

Sievekingk, and prompted by a desire to "live life" she had left her

husband, a doctor somewhere in Further Pomerania, and after various

adventures was at present being kept by the wealthy proprietor of a

steam-laundry, by name Wohlfahrt. He was as thin as a skeleton, had red

hair, and suffered from dyspepsia, remedies for which she carried about

with her in her handbag, in the shape of tabloids and quack powders.

But this touching and considerate attention did not prevent her from

deceiving him with every man who made advances to her. It was

universally known, and no one blamed her, for she was a poet, and was

obliged to seek experiences to write about. An inevitable result of

indulging in what many a one had thought was an absolutely secret

_liaison_ with her was to find himself a few weeks later portrayed to

the life as the hero of a passionate short story in a modern German

magazine, or providing a theme for a lurid love lyric.

Frau Welter, the divorced wife of the famous composer, was another of

their intimate circle. Her round, tanned face--she had lately come back

from a secret mission to Algiers--formed a comical contrast to her mass

of dyed golden hair, which stood out round her head and neck like a

halo. It was rather a dangerous thing to become friendly with her. She

asked everyone she met to lend her money, though she was well off, and

in receipt of a handsome alimony from her husband's relatives. Her

generosity was so boundless that she sacrificed all that she had and

all that her friends lent her to a pair of ex-lovers, both of whom were

scamps. No one exactly knew under whose protection she was living at

the present moment. She was often seen with a puisne judge, who looked

as if he had swallowed a poker and used his tongue instead of a

toothpick.

A thin shrewish little woman, pretty and malicious, with cold

steel-blue eyes and sucked-in lips, always wore white silk, and trailed

a fan-shaped train behind her: she called herself Frau Karla, but what

her real name was no one knew except her lover, a very young, very pale

and slim young man, the son of a rich manufacturer. He gratified her

absorbing passion for pleasure, being completely in her power, and

followed her about till dawn. In an unguarded moment he had rashly

disclosed that she was the wife of a well-known Hebrew scholar, who

lived a life of seclusion, and imagined that she was employed in

visiting society in the west-end of Berlin, while he sat peacefully

poring over his philological tables. All the time she was racing about

from one haunt of vice to another in suspicious company.

Women of every description moved in this "set," their past and their

means of support concerning no one so long as they were pretty and

elegant and a little above the thoroughpaced _cocotte_. Among the men

who were not attached as licensed escort to any lady, but who came to

fish in troubled waters, was Dr. Salmoni, who at the Kellermann

carnival had beaten the big drum with so melancholy a smile. Lilly

always felt constrained and tongue-tied in his presence, though there

seemed to be some spiritual link between them. Everyone he met came

under the lash of his caustic wit, except herself, whom he

considerately spared. Sometimes he seemed to be dissecting her with his

keen eyes, and would whisper softly in her ear as he passed her, "What

are you doing here, fair lady?"

Herr Kellermann appeared pretty often, got drunk, and then made remarks

about a chained beauty crying aloud for release, remarks which Lilly

was careful not to notice. He found, as a rule, that towards the end of

the evening he had no change in his pocket, so that Richard had to pay

his bill.

Such was the world in which Lilly passed her days and nights. She

received mysterious communications: invitations from men to whom she

had never spoken, asking her to meet them; anonymous presents of

flowers--from modest bunches of violets to baskets of showy orchids;

calls from ladies of doubtful character who were getting up charity

subscriptions, and with a meaning smile hoped Lilly would join

them--indeed, it was a never-ceasing wave of vicious desire that rolled

up to her threshold. For a time she was alarmed, then she became

indifferent.

* * * * *

Spring days came, and with them the great race-meetings, at which

everyone with any pretensions to smartness put in an appearance.

Since Lilly in shy queenliness had begun to reign at his side, the

sporting tastes, which had been latent in Richard hitherto, awoke, and

were developed with such passionate eagerness that he would not have

missed a race for the world. Though he did not bet, his pockets were

crammed with bookmakers' "tips," and he talked of little else than

pedigrees and winning chances, Lilly, who understood nothing at all

about it, cheerfully listened.

One morning after she had read in the paper the results of the previous

day's racing, the following passage caught her eye:

"Among charming representatives of the society that does not know what

_ennui_ is, we again saw the beauty of imposing type who has of late

graced various functions, bringing with her an aroma of the _beau

monde_, of which it is said she was once an ornament. Her favourite

colour seems to be violet, and in accordance with a famous precedent,

she might appropriately be dubbed 'La dame aux violettes.' At all

events, we congratulate our metropolis on the acquisition of this new

luminary, who is certain to add lustre to its reputation."

"Who could that have been?" Lilly thought, with a slight pang of

jealousy, and she tried to recall to her mind the forms of all the

women she had admired the day before. But among them she could not

identify the heroine of the paragraph.

Then suddenly the blood mounted hotly to her cheeks. She looked at the

Redfern coat and skirt of violet cloth, which she had hung on a chair

after taking it off yesterday. It was now more than two years old, but

so perfectly cut and finished that it could rival any of the most chic

creations of the spring. She had worn it several times following

because she had not another tailor-made gown to equal it, and Richard's

pocket must not suffer from her extravagance in dresses. There could be

no further doubt. She it was who was meant, and no other.

Her first thought was, "How pleased Richard will be!"

But she, too, was pleased. Frau Laue's boldest prophecies seemed to be

coming true. She had awakened to find herself famous. She was actually

in the newspapers!

If only it had not been for that strange inexplicable feeling of fear,

which was always crouching at the bottom of her heart, and came

creeping to the surface whenever some unexpected event advanced her a

little further on the road to fame and happiness! All the time that she

had been going out in the world at Richard's side, nothing had happened

to her that was not a source of joy, pride, and hopefulness. Everyone

seemed to respect her, everyone flattered her. Torturing uncertainty

and contempt of herself had given place to a calm appreciation of her

own value in the sight of strangers. Yet that dull harassing fear was

ever present. Nothing really silenced it.

Richard came earlier than usual that afternoon, waving the Monday paper

up at her from the street. When they had embraced each other a dozen

times at least, and read the paragraph over twenty times, he became

taciturn and moody, and with his arms crossed in a Napoleonic pose he

paced the room with short ringing steps. It was plain that his brain

was bursting with ambition.

Then there was a ring, and little Frau Sievekingk was announced. She

had often looked in before to have a friendly chat with Lilly, but they

had not become more intimate in consequence. To-day she came at the

right moment to share in the exultation over Lilly's newly acquired

fame.

Her grey velvet bolero suit shimmered in the evening light, and her

jaunty scarlet toque, with its drooping plumes, fitted on to her dark

curly coiffure like a cap of flame.

She held out her hand to Lilly with her most alluring smile, but, when

she turned to Richard, there flashed in her shifty bright eyes a gleam

of determination similar to that with which she intimidated her

red-headed lover into taking his tabloids for dyspepsia. As since the

carnival they had continued outwardly to maintain the sham of a

platonic friendship, Richard meekly took up his hat, as if giving Lilly

a cue to ask him formally if he could not stay longer. But the little

woman forestalled them.

"Don't pretend," she said, "that you are not perfectly at home here. As

if I didn't understand! Please call each other by your Christian or pet

names, and I'll seem as if I hadn't heard."

Both smiled, and while Lilly gave her guest a cup of tea, he toyed with

the newspaper in question, a little obviously, for he wanted to find

out whether Frau Sievekingk had heard anything of their great triumph.

"That is just what I've come to talk about," said the little lady,

"that rubbish in the paper. I suppose you think an awful lot of it?"

Richard made a gesture of protest, but smiled complacently.

"To speak frankly, I should have credited you with a little more

sense."

"Would you really?" Richard exclaimed, aghast, and Lilly jumped. The

crouching fear that had made itself felt earlier seemed to tell her

that even this piece of undiluted good fortune might conceal a sting.

"Please listen to what I am going to say," the little visitor

continued, and her eyes flashed now not shiftily but steadily. "I have

experience in these matters, for my red-headed boy tried the same game

on with me at first.... I wonder if the thought has ever occurred to

you, Herr Dehnicke, that when one of the _elite_, as is that sweet

exquisitely unique creature sitting there, entrusts herself to your

care, you have taken a gigantic responsibility upon your shoulders? Do

you men think we exist merely to feed and advertise your vanity? We're

not milliners or chorus girls who want to be dressed up in silks and

chiffons simply that the world may see what a dog you are. We may have

lost caste, it is true, but that doesn't mean we are by a long way come

down to what you would like to treat us as."

Richard struggled to retort, but could not find words.

Then she bent tenderly towards Lilly, and continued: "A poor butterfly

of aristocratic lineage comes flitting along unsuspectingly and says,

'Take me--you can do what you like with me.' And what are you going to

do with her? Are you going to make a bad woman of her, or rather what

the world accepts as a bad woman? No! I won't be contradicted. That's a

good beginning," and she pointed to the paper; "if once the scorpions

of the Press busy themselves about us, then the gallants of the Guards

are on our track. Then God help you! They are far handsomer and more

gallant than any of you, and if we must be driven into the ranks of the

_cocottes_, we'd rather know by whom and for whom. Afterwards you find

yourselves chucked, a stale joke of the day before yesterday--nothing

more."

All this confused Lilly and turned her giddy. She could not have

believed that anyone would dare to speak to Richard in such a tone, and

she laid her hand protestingly and comfortingly on his shoulder,

fearful that he would be angry and assert his dignity as host.

But he did nothing of the sort.

"I am willing to be guided by you," he said humbly, "if you'll only

tell me what----"

"If you don't know what you ought to do, I'll tell you. You ought not

to trot her out and put her through her paces as if she were a prize

animal, exposing her to the gaze of any gaping crew. Don't put her in

the front of your box at the theatre for every _roue_ to look at

through his opera-glasses."

Richard manned himself to parry her attack.

"If I may venture to ask the question, are you not to be seen

everywhere?" he asked.

"Yes, certainly, because I want to see as well as be seen. That is why

I ran away from my brute of a husband and chucked respectability.

Still, I don't sit in the front of boxes, and I don't let myself be

trotted up and down a race-course. I am a Bohemian; Lilly, on the

contrary, with her placid refined nature, is a home-bird, and should be

treated as if she were your legal wife.... We neither of us want to

descend to the demi-monde--that is to say, what we call demi-monde here

in Germany; in the French sense we are already there. Now I have said

my say, Herr Dehnicke."

Richard stood up. He had grown very red, and was biting his moustache

with impotent resentment.

"I have always put her welfare before everything," he said. "Besides, I

have only acted according to her wishes; have I not, Lilly?"

Lilly felt she couldn't contradict him. She did not desire to see him

further humiliated, and said nothing.

"And if you acted a thousand-fold according to her wishes," answered

the little woman for her, "you were wrong. You should have said,

'My child, you don't understand this sort of life; as we are not

married--which, mark my word, would be far the best for both of you--we

must live at a moderate pace, otherwise I shall do you an irreparable

injury and drag you into the mud.'"

Tears sprang to Lilly's eyes at the mention of the word "married" in

relation to herself and Richard. To hide her emotion she went hurriedly

to fetch his overcoat, for it was a quarter to six.

She accompanied him to the door, and kissed him affectionately; she did

not wish him to think that she bore him any grudge.

To her guest, she stood up for him zealously. He had been very kind and

good to her, he had not meant any harm, and he had saved her from an

evil fate.

"I didn't come here to make mischief," the little woman said, laughing,

and asked if she might sit on a little longer. She mentioned, too, that

her name was Jula, and expressed a desire to be called by it in future.

They now sat hand in hand on the sofa--above which Walter's portrait

had been replaced by a very mediocre sheep-shearing scene--and nibbled

cakes from the little glass plates on their laps. For the first time

Lilly enjoyed the sensation of possessing a friend of her own sex, for

she had always been too much in awe of Fraeulein von Schwertfeger to

regard her in that light.

The bullfinch sang a piteous little song of spring, and the sparrows

answered from the chestnut-trees outside. The May sunshine reflected

tremulous spirals on the walls, and now and again a flash of gold

lightning raced across the aquarium, stirring the green sedges and

grasses.

This was an hour for confidences.

"Didn't I put on airs just now?" Frau Jula said. "But it was necessary,

my sweet. You, like me, are standing on the brink of a precipice. One

little push and over we go, and then no one can pick us up again. If we

had any character to rely on it wouldn't be so bad ... but we don't

know how to be faithful, and, what is more, we don't want to be."

"How _can_ you say that?" cried Lilly in horror.

Frau Jula showed the point of her little red tongue between her lips.

"Just wait a bit, my dearest. The men we meet are scarcely calculated

to make us think that we are ordained for the pleasure of one only. In

fact, the only way to appreciate them is to take them in the plural.

Oh! I could open your eyes to a thing or two; but I don't want to

frighten you ... besides, the plural number is dangerous.... Each man

we give ourselves to takes away a bit of what is best in us. Yes, our

best, though I can't exactly define it. It's not self-esteem, because

that survives sometimes; it's not purity, we don't care a pin about

purity; and it's not happiness. I tell you, we should be bored to death

if we stuck to one man. I have talked about it to a lot of women, and

they all agree on _that_ point. Some of them think it's better not to

fall in love at all, and only do it for fun; others swear by the

_grande passion_ that will consecrate everything. No two people think

quite alike. And now I should like to give you a few hints, because the

day will come when you are sure to need them. Don't let them give you

presents--that is to say, not things of value. Flowers are permissible,

but not too many. And don't give _them_ presents, because only honest

married women can afford to do that. Beware, as a rule, of the lover

offering gifts, for that simply breeds _cocottes_. As I say, married

women may do what is not fitting for us to do; they have to be revenged

for being tied by the leg to the '_one only_.' We, on the other hand,

are free, and can go when we like. We may do everything but that; we

mayn't do that."

"Why mayn't we?" asked Lilly, becoming suddenly conscious of her

chains.

"Married women may do anything; they may be divorced a hundred times

and hold their heads as high as ever.... But in our case it is always a

plunge lower; the oftener we change, the more we become common booty.

It's all very well if we have money of our own, but you and I haven't.

They hover about us, watching like vultures ... and they say to

themselves, 'If so-and-so can keep her, and so-and-so, why shouldn't my

good money buy her?' For this reason a woman should cleave closely to

the one she has got--no matter how small and despicable he is, or how

much she may loathe him in her secret soul."

"I don't quite understand you," said Lilly. "Surely the one you have is

the one you love."

"What! Have you loved every one of them?"

"Good gracious! There haven't been so many," Lilly answered. "Besides

my husband the general"--she could not resist pronouncing the "proud"

word--"there was only one other, and this one."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Frau Jula, genuinely indignant. "Are you setting

up to be a model of virtue?"

Lilly assured her that she had spoken the truth.

Frau Jula had difficulty in grasping it. "Then you don't belong to us

at all! You ought to be a judge's wife."

Lilly laughed. After believing herself condemned for ever on account of

her immorality, it was refreshing to find someone who ridiculed her for

being too good.

"Ah! if I were to tell you the stories of all the women who are

around us, you would be surprised," Frau Jula went on. "Some will only

look at girls. Some let furnished rooms to students, that are only

taken by those they fancy; others"--here she lowered her voice to a

whisper--"others find their lovers in the streets."

Lilly shuddered. "What? Have I sat next them, perfectly unsuspecting?"

Frau Jula's eyes burned into vacancy. "It's awful, isn't it?" she

said, and laughed. "I don't care so much; you see, I have my poetry the

sort of thing that gives me absolution. For its sake everything is

sacrificed. One must have sensations. I must feel my blood run

quicker ... I must study human nature; there is something new in

everyone.... No matter how wretched a specimen a man is, with brains

and soul that might be packed into a thimble, he can give you an hour

of ecstasy--one hour in which bells chime, in which the spheres are

full of organ-sounds. And the more you have, the more life you live,

the more souls do you creep to the other side of. Doors are flung open:

all secrets are revealed.... And if you can hear a stranger's heart

beating, can feel his heart-beats in your fingertips--then he is

yours, part of yourself. Then you live one life more. Yes, that is

life--really life."

She put up her arms and clasped her hands at the back of her neck.

Lilly said to herself that she couldn't take this talk seriously, but

she felt hot and cold waves pass over her.

"I don't understand at all what you are talking about," she said,

rising.

Frau Jula didn't seem to hear. Her eyes were full of mystic fire. She

looked like a priestess sacrificing to strange gods.

It struck eight. The maid servant who had been laying the table in the

next room had set a place for the lady, who didn't seem inclined to go,

and now came in to announce that the repast was ready.

"Will you stay and have supper with me?" Lilly asked against her will.

Frau Jula at last collected herself; she neither accepted nor declined,

but got up and removed her scarlet toque from her dark locks.

"I am quite mad, am I not?" she asked, and the silly but alluring smile

played about her lips again.

With a sigh of relief, Lilly opened the dining-room door.

The table was covered with a sheeny damask cloth, on which leaves of

light were cast by the hanging lamp. The bright-coloured dinner

service, copied from an old Strasburg pattern, had been bought by

Lilly cheap at a sale, and the plate, including the castors and the

sugar-tongs, shone as brightly as real silver, and could only be

distinguished from it by the absence of a mark. The idea was, that

when Richard stayed to meals he should find all as well ordered and

spick-and-span as at his mother's table.

Frau Jula gave an exclamation of delight. "Oh, how charming you have

made it all--so dear and cosy! I do believe I am right in saying that

you were born to be a married housewife. You should see my rubbishy

place! But what is the good of keeping up appearances when my

red-headed boy ruins his digestion at restaurants, dining on lamb

kidneys _au lard_ and truffles? When he is at home I make him gruel and

bread-crumbs, and give it to him straight out of the saucepan, without

any ceremony or laying of table."

"Thank goodness," Lilly thought, "she is her natural self again."

The meal was quite unpretentious, consisting of cold meat dishes and

baked potatoes, with the remains of a tart for sweet. But Frau Jula ate

with a greater relish than she had known for years, and commented on

everything.

Lilly told her that for the sake of economy she ordered her meat from

the country. She would gladly give her friend the address.

"I guessed you did that," said Frau Jula, with a soft sigh, her eyes

meditatively fixed on space.... And after a pause came the confession

in a low voice. "It was the same there."

"Where?" asked Lilly.

"At home, where we lived."

Then suddenly she hurled away her napkin, jumped up, and went to the

open window. She wrung her hands, beat her forehead, and called

hysterically into the evening air: "I am going to the bad as fast as I

can--utterly to the bad!"

"What is the matter with you?" Lilly stammered. She was so shocked that

she too sprang up and went to the window.

"I want to go back to my husband ... to my husband.... My husband is a

monster, a beast, it's true. Life there is simply death ... that's all

perfectly true. Yet I want to go back to my husband.... Here I shall go

under--under."

Lilly laid her hand caressingly on her neck.

"Why, dear," she said consolingly, "you have just been giving me such

useful instructions as to how to avoid going under. And, then, you have

in your literary art a mainstay, which I lost long ago." Sighing, she

glanced at the curtained cupboards, where the last of her pasted sunset

forests glowed in obscurity. "No, no; you will not go under. You will

rise higher and higher, to the very top, and from there look down on

other poor women."

Frau Jula sobbed on her shoulder. "Never now, never!" she cried. "I

can't get out of this whirlpool. It's poisoned me; my brain is

poisoned. I am going to the bad! I am going to the bad!"

Lilly put her arm gently in hers and led her back to the sofa-corner in

the unlighted drawing-room, where she had been sitting before.

"Ah, here it is nice and dark," she said, whimpering like a child.

"Here I can tell you everything, but shut the door; there mustn't be a

gleam of light."

Lilly closed the door of the "pattern" room. Now they were sitting in

the dark. Only the late evening twilight, which from the canal

penetrated the still scanty branches of the chestnuts, cast a greyish

shadow on her tear-stained face.

"Just now," began Frau Jula, "I spoke of women who sought their love

adventures in the streets, and you started up in horror. Do you know

who one of these women is? I am one."

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Lilly.

"Yes, I am one. The evening that my red-headed boy leaves me alone, I

put on dark things and drive into districts where nobody knows who I

am. When I meet someone whom I like the look of, I give him a glance

that makes him turn round and speak to me; then I go with him into a

common inn, or to a little confectioner's, anywhere he likes, or I sit

with him on a seat in the dark ... and if I like him still better than

I thought ... I will just go with him anywhere--anywhere he asks me to

go."

"Oh, how dreadful that is!" said Lilly, and pressed her hands to her

eyes. Now she knew why a few months ago something had seemed to draw

her more and more powerfully to the streets, why a pleasant thrill had

passed through her when someone had addressed her in the dark; only, of

course, she had been too nervous to answer.

"And now I have told you this, and you know what I am, you won't want

me to sit on your beautiful sofa any more!" cried Frau Jula. "Say it

plump out, and I'll go." She caught beseechingly at Lilly's hands.

Lilly felt like a good Samaritan who, having come across someone

grievously afflicted, was bound to do the best she could for her.

"What makes you do it?" she asked gently. "You are not so lonely. How

have you come to it?"

"Yes, how have I come to it? Can you say how you have come to what you

are? It's all very well for people to reproach us with weakness; but

one necessity leads on to another, one wish gives birth to more wishes,

and one always thinks one is doing right."

"That is true enough," Lilly faltered, recalling the decisive moments

of her own life.

"I have always persuaded myself that I must do it for the sake of my

poetry. I must have experiences, pictures, and what the French call

_frisson_. But all that is nothing but an excuse, a mere pretext. The

truth is that you just seek and seek. Your own husband is not what you

want, your red-headed boy isn't either, and all the rest aren't--your

sportsmen, merchants, and lieutenants. But you think he must be

somewhere. Perhaps he's that stranger at the next table? You are almost

sure he is, so you become acquainted with him, and find that he isn't.

It's none of the worthy ones, for however much trouble they may take to

possess us they take no trouble to find out if there is anything worthy

in us. And so you have to go on searching. Perhaps it will be someone

in the street? It becomes at last a positive fever ... it consumes and

burns you up. Often I can't sleep for thinking of the next dark night

when I shall be wandering about looking ... Don't you see? It _must_

end in ruin to me, body and soul. And this evening, when I saw your

daintily laid supper-table, all at once a longing came over me for my

home and husband. Yes, I am periodically tortured with that longing. He

has weak eyes, and smells of carbolic. Oh, that vilest of all vile

smells! How much I should like to smell it again! I shouldn't even mind

his throwing his stethoscope at me as often as he likes. He has written

asking me to go back.... I can go back if I choose ... and yet I don't

go. I stay here and perish. Oh, life is farcical!"

She rose and fumbled for her hat and hatpins, which lay on the table.

Lilly couldn't bear her to go in such an agitated state of mind.

"If you feel that it is a poison in your blood, that it must ruin you,

why don't you guard against it? Why don't you conquer the feeling?

Force of will can do a lot."

"I have often said so to myself," replied Frau Jula, "but I have never

had anyone to confide in about it who could help me. Now I have found

you it will be easier. Now I almost feel as if I could--could conquer

it."

"Will you promise me to try?" asked Lilly, holding out her hand.

"Yes, I promise," she cried, and shook hands joyously. "You are going

to be my saviour. You are already. And to thank you, I will keep a

sharp lookout that you aren't spoilt. You shall never be what I am, and

what the others are."

"Oh, I can look after myself," murmured Lilly.

"Ah, so you say! But when the dreary void comes, and _he_ grows more

and more unsatisfying and colourless, you have nothing to say to each

other, and you mustn't have children.... None of us have them, because

we all know how to prevent their coming. He lets you have no part or

lot in his affairs, and you feel behind everything how his family hates

you. _They_ think we are a species of harpy. And then how constantly he

proclaims his intention of marrying when he wants most to annoy us!

And, above all, there's the longing ... it's like an everlasting dead

gnawing toothache ... yes, it's just like toothache. Wherever you are,

it torments you. For life cannot end like this, you say to yourself;

something must happen at last. Oh, it's ten times worse than marriage!

Wait and see if it isn't...."

Lilly's heart became ever sorer at her words. A wild misery clutched

her.

"Pray say no more," she begged. "If it's to be, it'll come soon enough.

I don't want to think about it."

"You are right, darling," said Frau Jula; "it does no good." And she

took her leave.

"You won't forget your promise?" Lilly reminded her from the top of the

stairs.

"Never; no, never! I swear it." And she glided out.

With a whirling brain, Lilly went back to the darkened drawing-room and

leaned absently and dejectedly out of the open window to breathe in the

freshness of the evening air.

She watched the tiny woman who had just come out at the front entrance

trip lightly and gracefully along the pavement.

A man in a tall hat and patent-leather shoes passed her, then

hesitated, stopped, and turned back again. As he came up with her he

lifted his hat with exaggerated courtesy.

By the light of the street-lamp Lilly saw her face upturned to his,

full of curiosity, and with an ingratiating smile, and then they walked

on--together.

CHAPTER IX

Richard was reluctant to conform to a more temperate manner of life. He

was still eager to be seen with Lilly and to have her admired. But

little Frau Jula's lecture had really touched his conscience, and he

had not the nerve to set it at defiance.

Nevertheless, he sulked and brooded and yawned, and seemed so bored

that Lilly, to cheer him up, was on the point of volunteering to

accompany him to the next race-meeting, when news reached her that her

mother was dead.

She cried a great deal, and her grief was in proportion to the

tenderness of her heart, which was very soft. But in reality her mother

had been dead to her for so long that the sorrow she felt at her actual

death could not be very deep or lasting.

Before starting for the West Prussian asylum to attend the funeral, her

chief anxiety had been to get as simple mourning as possible, for she

was ashamed not to have done more for her mother, and did not wish to

give cause for scandal by being too elegant as she stood at the pauper

grave. All the same, the officials and doctors at the asylum were most

deferential to her, and appeared to regard her as some exquisite black

bird of Paradise.

It was not till after she had spent three very hot spring evenings,

praying and meditating, beside the small heap of gravel, that she

returned to Berlin, full of serious thoughts and re-awakened memories.

While away she had thought she hated Richard, but when she found him

waiting for her at the station, she sank into his arms helplessly,

craving for his sympathy. For now she had no one else but him; he

really was her all on earth.

It was an understood thing that for the next few months nocturnal

dissipations should cease on account of her mourning, and to his credit

Richard showed her every consideration in the matter. He sat at home

spending many quiet evenings with her, reading books that he couldn't

appreciate and playing backgammon; and would go to sleep on the sofa

rather than attempt to beguile her into the gay world. But in order

that he should not be quite lost to that world, it was agreed that he

should have every other evening to himself.

The notoriety that his beautiful mistress had acquired smoothed the way

for him. He was elected to the Club that he had long hankered after,

through the support of two of her aristocratic admirers, without a

single blackball. So now it was open to him to enjoy the supreme

felicity of losing part of his firm's hardly earned fortune to young

scions of the nobility, foreign attaches, and other superior beings.

Lilly was not pleased to hear of his losses, which he confided to her

with much feigned growling and grumbling. She practised economy more

assiduously than before to try and make them good. He laughed at her

efforts, and declared that she cost him no more than an extra cigarette

a day; but her conviction that she was a burden on the firm of Liebert

& Dehnicke remained deeply rooted.

On the quiet evenings that he recruited from his nights of dissipation

their business conversations were resumed. Lilly liked to "talk shop,"

and she displayed a keen commercial as well as artistic faculty.

Richard frequently brought with him sketches of models, and they would

sit with their heads bent together over unrolled charts, planning and

consulting like a pair of partners. Those hours were almost blissful,

and she never tired of asking questions about the factory itself. How

many hands, male and female, were employed there at the present moment?

Was that man or woman or this one there now? She didn't know their

names, but could describe their faces exactly. What work had they

chiefly on hand? Had the supply of certain models run out? Thus she

kept herself _au courant_ with the inner life of the business.

The factory was her ill-starred love, as she often said in joke to

Richard. If she was allowed to call for him after business hours at the

office, it was the greatest treat he could give her. If she could have

had her way she would have found an excuse for going daily to the

factory; but Richard didn't wish it. The employes, he said, had long

ago got to know what their relations to each other were, and he must be

careful not to lay himself open to disrespectful gossip.

She was sure that this could not be his only motive. There was

something else behind. She had realised for some time that his mother

was not well disposed towards her. Once he had talked about her quite

freely and openly, but now he avoided the subject, even when Lilly

asked direct questions.

It was likely enough that he was afraid of raising the old lady's ire

by giving his mistress the run of his office, so she had to content

herself by taking interest from a distance in the welfare of the little

kingdom.

On the evenings that she was left alone, she was in the habit of making

ten-o'clock pilgrimages to the Alte Jakobstrasse on her own account.

She would take up a position on the opposite side of the street and

gaze reverentially across at the old grey house, with its wonderful

modern embellishments. She admired the imitation marble pillars, which

now gave an air of splendour, in the style of the Renaissance, to the

entrance. She stared up at the floor where his mother made her home,

and withdrew timorously into the darkness of a doorway when a woman's

threatening shadow was cast on the drawn curtains. When it grew late

and people ceased to come in and out of the house, she would boldly

cross the street, slip up the steps to the front-door, and with her

face pressed against the iron gate peep at the interior of the

staircase landing, whence came the sheen of laurels, the milky

radiance of the Clytie bust, and the dark, rich chequered glow of the

stained-glass windows, an impressive combination that recalled the dim

religious light of a chapel.

Those front-door steps grew to be a sort of sacred pilgrims' way, along

which penitents crawled on their hands and knees; the stained-glass

became a heavenly glory; the Clytie a benedictory saint.

* * * * *

Towards autumn Richard was called out to serve at the man[oe]uvres. His

letters were curt and few, and their tone could not disguise his bad

temper. The last was dated from the hospital, as he was on the sick

list, owing to a fracture of the knee-joint caused by a fall from his

horse. It would prevent his riding again for a long time, perhaps for

ever.

When he came back in October he was still compelled to wear a knee-cap,

and sent in his resignation. The accident really proved a piece of good

fortune, for rumours of his relations with the divorced wife of the

commander of the regiment had got afloat, and in consequence he was

being cut by his fellow-officers. His superiors were only waiting for

confirmatory evidence to call him before a court-martial, a proceeding

which would certainly have deprived him of his commission in the

Reserves. He thus escaped by the skin of his teeth public disgrace, and

his surly reproachful manner to Lilly was meant to show how much he had

sacrificed for her sake.

The news of the colonel, which he had gathered indirectly, filled her

with dismay. The old martinet had turned Fraeulein von Schwertfeger out

of the castle, having become obsessed by the suspicion that she had

acted in collusion with the guilty lovers. He now lived the life of a

misanthropic recluse, and it was feared he might go out of his mind. A

message of evil indeed from that past of sunshine.

* * * * *

As winter approached, one of Frau Jula's prophecies seemed as if it

were coming to pass. Richard began to discuss his matrimonial prospects

with Lilly, not to annoy her, it is true, but simply because it had

become a habit to unburden his mind to her about everything that

troubled him.

His mother had invited an orphaned heiress on a visit to their house.

Of course, she had done it solely for _his_ benefit, and no other

reason. He had to sit next her at meals every day. She was a rather

pallid girl and had hair the colour of straw. She looked at him with

big strange eyes, and seemed to ask, "When are you going to propose?"

And his mother was for ever preaching to him.

Things couldn't go on as they were. Another winter like the two last

and every decent family among their acquaintance would be pointing the

finger of scorn at him--so his mother said--and it was enough to drive

a fellow distracted. Lilly felt as if icy water was streaming down her

back. But she maintained a brave face, and showed no more inward

emotion than if they were discussing a model for a new "bronze."

"Do you think you could care for her?" she asked.

"Good God! What do you call 'caring'?" he answered, staring beyond her

vacantly. "You talk as if I were serious about it. I believe you

wouldn't mind getting rid of me."

He pretended to be angry, and Lilly reasoned with him coolly. He

mustn't imagine for a moment that she would stand in his way. She had

nothing but his happiness at heart. It would make her proud if he gave

her his confidence and did not take this step--now or later--without

talking it all over with her first.

He was touched, kissed her, and replied that so far it was all in the

air.

But the conversation left Lilly beset with dread as if by a nightmare.

Her one coherent thought was, "If he leaves me in the lurch now, what

will become of me?"

Grief for her mother's death was nothing compared with this martyrdom

of anxiety. The vultures that Frau Jula had spoken of occurred to

her--all those greedy vultures, in white shirt-fronts and black coats,

hovering round to offer her their "good money" directly her friend and

protector should have deserted her. And then she thought of those other

vultures in Kellermann's picture, cowering on the sun-baked rocks,

ready to pounce on the naked beauty directly she became defenceless.

"Her chains are her weapon of defence," Lilly said to herself, "and so

it is with me. As soon as I am free, I am lost."

The next day neither of them alluded at first to the dangerous topic,

but Richard was absent-minded and ill at ease. Then Lilly took heart

and said huskily, "I see, Richard, you are still undecided in your

mind. Won't you bring me a photograph of her to see? No one knows you

as well as I do, and no one will be able to judge better whether or not

she is suited to you."

He vehemently denied that he was trying to make up his mind. The girl

was nothing to him. She was an empty-headed doll. But his indignation

was not genuine, and his eyes were fixed on space. For "the doll" had

five millions.

And the next afternoon he brought her photograph. Without taking it out

of the soft paper in which it was wrapped, she laid it aside. Merely

touching it made her hands tremble. She was afraid that her first

glance at it would betray her inward agitation.

"Aren't you going to look at it?" he asked, a little disappointed.

"There will be time enough when you are gone," she replied, and

congratulated herself on her smile of indifference.

When he was in the hall she called after him:

"To-morrow I will tell you what I think, you know."

Then she rushed back to the photograph, not omitting, however, to wave

from the window to Richard, a duty which had become a habit with her.

"And now ... now the photograph!" Oh, what a good, calm, rather

delicate-looking girlish face it was, looking at her with sorrowful

though nice eyes. The fair plaits of hair, as thick as a man's wrist,

were twisted round the back of the head in country fashion; a timid

smile played on the full-lipped mouth. It was the face of a lovable

child. Happiness would make it bloom like a spray of lilac put in

water. It indicated a nature reposeful, not too gifted, housewifely,

and clinging. Exactly what he wanted.

She placed the picture on a chair and threw herself on her knees before

it. She prayed and wrestled with herself, but in the end she could not

help saying to herself again, "Exactly what he wants; what he would

never find a second time if he hunted all the world over."

And she had five millions! If she did not give him up now she would

indeed be one of those harpies, to whom, according to Frau Jula, she

and her kind were likened in respectable family circles.

"But he is mine; I have the right of possession! What good would his

five millions do me if through them I go to the bad altogether? Why

should I sacrifice myself for him or anyone?"

The word "harpy" continued to ring persistently in her ears.

She thought of the Furies depicted in the illustrated mythology books,

the terror of all school-children, with their beautiful hair and

murderous claws.

"What I have is mine! I have a right to keep it, a right to tear it to

pieces too."

Oh, what a night that was. She lay in bed with her knees drawn up to

her chin and her face buried in her lap, sobbing. She stuffed her

clothes into her mouth, tore them out again, and sobbed anew; and at

last, towards morning, a resolve was born of her tears, her shudders,

her prayers, and bitter strife with herself--a resolve that seemed to

bring release and salvation: "This afternoon, when he comes, I will

tell him." But no! Why wait till the afternoon? Why let him cross the

threshold first? How easily might the influence of their wonted

association bring the great work of self-sacrifice to nothing! She must

choose another place, somewhere less familiar, from which she could

quickly escape as soon as she felt his presence made her falter.

She had been forbidden, it is true, to visit his office without special

permission; but if she chose the luncheon hour, and found him sitting

quietly resting in his private back room, this would be the most

favourable and easiest opportunity for an interview. No one would

notice her going in, and she would not be disturbing him. Besides, so

sacred a resolve as hers justified every step she might take.

She spent the morning in arranging and packing up his letters. She

intended to restore these to him with the photograph of his future

bride, so that his mind should be set at rest concerning them once for

all.

Then she dressed more carefully than usual, and washed away the traces

of her tears with milk of lilies. She waved her hair so that it

descended over her neck in full ripples, such as she had seen in Greek

statues. She felt, indeed, like one of those marble women of ancient

Greece, so serenely elevated was her frame of mind above earthly

happiness and sorrow.

She drove to the office. As the clocks chimed a quarter-past one she

stood at the pillared portico. No one was about in the yard; only the

porter took off his cap with a friendly smile. To him she was still the

"boss's" ladylove.

It was a pity that she did not take the precaution of being announced.

The door of the outer office was standing open, as usual when he was

still at work in his room. She knew the secret catch that opened the

wooden rail of partition, and passed through. She knocked cautiously at

the further door. To-day it was shut, which was not usual.

He said, "Come in."

She went in, and stood face to face--with his mother.

This was the first time she had ever seen her. She was quite different

from what she had expected. Instead of the tall, thin, silver-haired,

stately old lady her imagination had pictured, she saw sitting at his

writing-table a stout woman of middle height, with grizzled locks under

her black lace cap. A pair of cold grey eyes looked up at her with a

surprised and indignant glance.

"This is his mother," she thought.

Richard jumped up from his revolving-chair, and Lilly, speechless with

terror, stared at the old lady, who in her turn sprang to her feet. An

expression of fury and scorn blazed in the cold grey eyes.

"This is really a charming state of things," she cried, turning her

head from one to the other with sharp, angry jerks. "Charming! I am not

even safe in my own house, it seems.... I must ask you, Richard, not to

expose me again to a meeting with a person of this description."

And while Lilly timidly and respectfully made room for her to pass, she

swept to the door with a snort of rage.

"What are you doing here? What do you mean by coming here?"

Never had he shouted at her like this before.

He stood in front of her with his hands thrust deeply into his

trouser-pockets, biting the ends of his moustache, while his head was

so much on one side it almost lay on his shoulder. He looked like a

savage, infuriated bull.

She wanted to hand him the photograph and packet of letters, and tell

him everything, but her limbs and tongue seemed paralysed.

"I ... I ... I only ..." she stammered with a sob.

"I ... I ... I only ..." he scoffingly mimicked her. "I only wanted to

wriggle myself in here. I ... I ... would like to be mistress here.

Isn't that it, eh? ... No, no, my angel; we must put an end to this at

once.... Your so-called ill-starred love of my factory always struck me

as a bit suspicious. Get out of here! Get out, I say! Get out!"

And the next minute she was out--out in the street.

She still held the packet in its tissue-paper wrappings convulsively

between her cramped fingers. Staggering, she walked on, past staring

red houses that threatened to fall on her. She saw a truck loaded with

sacks of flour scattering white clouds. A pulley screeched in a factory

yard. Every time she saw anyone coming towards her she swerved into the

gutter, shrinking away in fear from the jeers of the passer-by. A skein

of wool that someone had lost lay on the pavement. She picked it up and

thought of hanging herself, for something must be done.

It was all very well to be abandoned and deserted; when your time came

you could expect nothing else, and must resign yourself to fate--but to

be stormed at and flung off, to be kicked out as if you were a burglar,

to be despised and spat upon like the lowest woman in the streets--oh,

that was too much!

She must do something to be revenged on him. And even if such a revenge

would no longer affect him, that didn't matter. He should at least be

convinced that he was to blame for everything. When she was wallowing

in that mire of which he had formerly expressed so much horror on her

account--when she was there ... Yes, something must be done, now, at

once--some suicidal act which would make her worthy of the gross

treatment she had received at his hands--something to free her from

these torments, these horrible torments!

Her heart hung in her breast like a painful tumour. She could have

outlined it with her finger, it felt so sharply prominent. It was as if

some claw held it in its clutch. And then again the vultures occurred

to her--the vultures crouching on the rocks in Kellermann's picture.

They were crouching to spring on Lilly Czepanek. Whom else? Ah, now she

had it! The thought flashed through her brain like an arrow. She called

a cab and drove quickly to Herr Kellermann's house.

She ran up the stairs, which little more than eight months ago she had

descended, steeped in bliss, at Richard's side. She stood in the

unaired, dark ante-room with its fusty smell, and knocked with a

faltering hand at the studio door.

Herr Kellermann sat on the floor in his tartan socks and down-at-heel

slippers making coffee, as on her first visit. He had a rather bloated

look, but seemed pleased with himself.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, drawing the collar of his night-shirt

together. "What brings you hither, lovely goddess, so suddenly? Have

your setting suns been rising again?"

She said nothing, but laid her hat and cloak on a chair and began to

unfasten her blouse. She looked round for a screen, but there wasn't

one, for the models who frequented this studio were not generally

troubled with shyness.

He sprang up and stared hard at her. Then, when he understood what she

intended to do, he burst into a sudden shout of joy.

"What did I say? Wasn't I right? Ha, ha! It has come to that, has it?

We are crying aloud for release. We want to be set free, eh?"

"I am not crying aloud for anything," said Lilly. "Kindly turn your

eyes the other way till necessary," The corners of her mouth curled in

scorn.

He seized the picture, blew the dust off it adjusted his easel,

laughing and chuckling to himself. "I knew she'd come. I said she'd

come!"

Lilly fumbled at the strings and buttons of her garments. Then she

slowly cast them from her one by one. Thus she stood, in the garish

light of the studio, pricked by a thousand needles of shame, and

exposed her unclothed body to the artist's gloating gaze.

* * * * *

The next afternoon Richard came to tea as usual. His eyes were red and

watery, and he looked depressed, but his manner did not betray the

least consciousness of anything out of the ordinary having happened.

She had hardly expected that he would come at all, and received him in

chilly surprise.

"Oh, about yesterday," he said carelessly. "Mother and I had a beastly

row. I had to promise her that you wouldn't come to the factory again.

So now we won't allude to it any more. The little girl with the fair

hair leaves us this evening. Give me a kiss."

So they kissed, and everything was the same as ever.

CHAPTER X

The twigs of the chestnuts had again put on their yellow gloves, and

many a leaf started on a whirling journey down the canal. Once more the

vista of grey water through the opening in the branches widened, tame

wild-ducks foraged along the banks, and the barges, sinking deep into

the water under their cargoes of odoriferous summer fruit, drifted

lazily to market. The world muffled itself up for coming winter days,

and the purveyors of pleasure in the capital were astir.

In seemly half-mourning the round of dissipation began again, Richard

objecting to being kept in a glass case any longer. But this time they

ceased to aspire to stage boxes and the gorgeous luxury of

distinguished night restaurants. Having established a reputation

through the ownership of a famous and withal inexpensive "_horizontale

de grande marque_," one could afford to remain on the level of a

middle-class "smart set," where German champagne is drunk and

Kempinski's proves a lodestar. They passed countless hours of reckless

debauchery in cabarets and theatres where smoking was allowed, in snug

corners, and in eminently respectable-looking private back rooms. Women

who had felt themselves a little _de trop_ in the other society were

more festive hare than ever before, and the men congratulated

themselves on not "bluing" so much money.

The people you met remained pretty much the same. Only a few dandies

fell off, not being able to conceive an existence of pleasure from

which the joy of being patronised by cavalry officers in mufti was

absent. Lilly followed the crowd, imagining there was no choice. She

sat for the most part saying little, but smiling a great deal in a

friendly way. She let the men pay her as much attention as they

pleased, but responded without enthusiasm, and she listened

indifferently to the women's confidences. She was popular with her

feminine compeers, who all recognised in her the amiable quality of not

wishing to poach on their preserves.

It might have been thought that she was stupid and lacking in animation

if occasionally she had not thawed under the influence of champagne,

which was capable of working an amazing revolution in her. Then she

seemed gradually to awake from her torpor, her eyes grew brilliant, her

cheeks rosy. She would laugh shrilly and say madly improper things,

even repeating the colonel's old Casino jokes, till as last she was

worked up into a state of rapture, in which she sang comic songs in a

tremulous twittering falsetto, mimicked well-known actors and

actresses, and even broke into more daring dances than were ever seen

on the variety stage.

It was extraordinary how retentive her memory was. Without knowing it,

she never forgot anything that she had once heard. In her normal

condition she remembered less than other people. Wine had first to

sweep away the barriers of reserve which, as a rule, dammed her flow of

wit.

Her associates soon discovered this phenomenal peculiarity in her, and

tried by a hundred devices to bring her into a condition that provided

them with such rare entertainment. But she resisted with all her

strength, and so she waged a perpetual warfare in which she could not

count on Richard as an ally, for he liked his fair mistress to be

applauded for her talent as well as admired for her beauty.

The next day she invariably felt limp and depressed, and sometimes when

her mind's horizon was bounded by a red forest of high kicking legs,

and the silly patter of suggestive songs rang in her head, a low voice

of exhortation made itself heard within her. "_Once_ you were

different," it said. "Once you looked up to the heights and aspired to

better things." But she dared not listen to this voice.... She felt she

was unworthy because she was defenceless and had no one to hold out to

her a protecting hand.

Sometimes, on the nights that she was free to do as she pleased, she

slipped out, as if she were doing something wrong, and went to the

gallery of a good theatre where she would not be known, or to the

orchestra of a concert-hall where music students of both sexes

congregated, sitting on steps and railings with the score on their

knees, following every note.

What she saw and heard made no deep impression on her. She felt

disquieted and out of her element, and fixed her attention on some

young man, whose bold profile or mass of artistic curls struck her

fancy.

"He is one of the gifted," she thought, with a torturing pain at her

heart, and she gazed at him so long and earnestly with languishing eyes

that at last he returned her glance with fiery fervour.

Yet, however hotly she might burn with eagerness to be spoken to by

him, she dared not give him further signals of encouragement, with Frau

Jula's awful example before her mind's eye.... And so she had to rest

content with the beating of her heart, which in itself alone caused her

delight.

So steeped was she now in the erotics of the world she moved in, that

the slightest rise in the temperature of passion was interpreted by her

as a complete drama of love and longing. Oh, the longing, that eternal

gnawing toothache, to which Frau Jula had referred; how well she knew

what it was now! It had come on her like a thief in the night, filling

her hours of rest with a panorama of flaming visions, changing her

waking hours into a drowsy trance.

She waited, and no one came. No one took the trouble to lift her lost

soul out of the dust. Only one person, who watched her keenly, appeared

to have any conception of what was going on within her.

This was Dr. Salmoni.

A great man was Dr. Salmoni in the estimation of those intellectual

circles in Berlin of which he was a luminary. He was the editor of an

art magazine once notorious for its revolutionary doctrines and the

zeal with which it attacked the great gods of the old school, and set

up new idols for the multitude to worship. But it was not Dr. Salmoni's

way to burn incense long at any shrine; when he saw the mob kneeling

before the fetishes of his own creation, he tore them down, too, and

ground them under the heel of his vituperative invective. His hate was

a thing to be lightly borne, his witticisms fizzled out and did not

hurt, no one believed his calumnies. More dangerous was the benevolent

kindness which he expended on all those whose reputation he intended to

ruin. Praise from Dr. Salmoni sounded like a death-sentence in certain

ears.

This distinguished man now, as in former winters, patronised

occasionally the harmless amusements of the little circle whose strong

point could hardly be called intellect. His appearance was hailed with

respectful enthusiasm; everyone made room for him, and hung on his lips

in anticipation of scathing personal remarks when he leaned back in his

chair with his melancholy sympathetic smile and stroked his pointed

reddish beard. But he did not always fill the _role_ of jester expected

of him. He would sometimes engage in a _tete-a-tete_ conversation, or

sit alone, lost in silent meditation.

He could even show, when he liked, a playful _naivete_, such as a

leopard displays when it gambols with puppies. He seldom spoke to

Lilly. But his penetrating eyes often wandered over her face with a

scrutinising glance. She felt every time he did this that he amused

himself by skimming the emotions of her soul.

One evening he sat down next her, and asked if she would cut up his

meat for him, as he had unfortunately sprained his wrist in strangling

a certain celebrity.... Next, in growing intimacy, he desired her to

feed him, which he might easily have done himself with his left hand,

which was not disabled.

Thus they found themselves conversing seriously for the first time.

Lilly trembled at the honour. She was afraid of not distinguishing

herself.

"I am quite astonished," he said, "that, after knocking about with this

ribald crew for over two years, your eyes do not betray you."

"How should they?" she asked.

"Kindly look one moment at the women collected here"--and he indicated

with his finger Frau Jula, Welter, and Karla, and two or three more.

"How they roll their eyes! how they look up under them! All that is the

lingo of ... I was going to say vice; but I detest expressions that are

so guiltless of nuances, so I will say instead, the lingo of a criminal

phantasy. Do you understand?"

"I think so," murmured Lilly.

"Now you, my dearest lady, still retain something of the childlike

innocence of former years in your glance. Not all, but something. A

_soupcon_ of contempt has crept in. No, contempt is not exactly the

right word. On the outskirts of deserts there are certain salt pools

that are green, dark, and empty, because the ground is poisoned. Do you

grasp what I mean?"

"I'm not sure that I do," she said.

"All the same, it's marvellous. Your soul seems to be a filter; it only

assimilates what it likes. Or perhaps you have a private source of

succour to draw on that puts you on a higher plane than us, some

crystallised immovable ideal ... some fixed star to shoot at ... some

sublime Song of Songs."

Lilly started so violently that a low cry escaped her lips, loud

enough, however, to attract the eyes of the company towards her.

"I have only trodden on this lady's foot," explained Dr. Salmoni, "and

she was ingenuous enough to think I did it by mistake."

Everyone laughed.

"A joke sufficiently clumsy to satisfy them," he said in a whisper,

leaning close to her shoulder. "I'll make believe not to have heard

your involuntary confession. I only value intended avowals. I am not

going to ask you to-night, as I asked you once before, what you are

doing here. I ask instead: What have you got to lose here? And I can

give the answer myself directly: Your style--your style stands in

peril. You are on the brink of losing your style, and becoming

guiltless of style, and that is a misfortune and a crime at the same

moment. Style is to me equivalent to virtue, greatness, sincerity,

religion, power, and a few other things all combined--a divine quality.

Keep to your last, spiritually and physically. There is _line_ in that;

an excellent thing to preserve. Swing yourself up, if you like, to the

peaks of a healthy and joyous viciousness--_tant mieux_. You can either

dress your hair like a nun's or let it float over the pillow like a

bacchante's--but be sure which you decide on."

"I think just now that you pleaded the cause of nuances," Lilly said,

feeling her wits sharpened by his, "and now you are talking

platitudes."

"Hear, hear," he answered approvingly. "That's capital! But no, no,

dear gracious one; I am not talking platitudes. I preach simply,

'_Will_,' the will to personality. In truth, there's room for plenty of

nuances. You have the stuff in you for a _grande amoureuse_; but, alas!

not the courage."

"And that shows I haven't the stuff," she retorted, giving him a

radiant look.

He laughed like a schoolboy. "Yes, yes. We all get old sometime, and

listen to little virtuous women lecturing us on logic."

And he chivalrously allowed her the satisfaction of having got the best

of him in repartee.

During the next few days Lilly reflected a good deal on what they had

talked about. How could he know so much about her? It was almost as if

he were in league with supernatural agencies. "Will to personality," he

had said. The phrase made her happy. Once more she began to ascend to

the heights.

* * * * *

Another time, when they followed a party of their friends at midnight

along the lively Friedrichstrasse, he adopted a different tone.

"I have a queer sort of feeling, dearest lady," he said, "that you are

afraid of me."

"I?" she said, catching her breath nervously. "Why should I be afraid

of you?"

"Because you know that I have a message for you. A message of

redemption for which in your secret heart you don't feel ready."

"I don't understand you," she faltered. But she understood perfectly

what he would say. She knew what part he might play in her life if----

"I am a man tuned in a minor key," he continued. "I don't like playing

my emotions on a trumpet, otherwise your ears might have tingled ere

this. Anyhow, I will say this, that I think it a scandal that a woman

like you, made to walk in high places, one capable of noble thought and

elevated enjoyments, should be bribed by a few pickled herrings into

living a stupid burlesque of a life.... I am not going to blame anyone,

but, my dearest lady, I assure you it is impossible to drain life's

ecstasy to the dregs in lukewarm dishwater ... and, after all,

intoxication is the main thing, so long as the blood leaps in our

veins."

Lilly trembled on his arm. They overtook a throng of gay

night-revellers young fellows who were shouldering their

walking-sticks, and looking dreamily before them with dizzy eyes. One

whistled Wagner, another sang a student's song. Pretty women of the

town, coming towards them, gave them alluring glances from dark-rimmed,

passion-lit eyes ... more followed, youths and men, girls little more

than children, all infected by the same transports. It was like a

figure in a sylvan dance in which everyone offered each other hand and

mouth, body and soul.

"What am I to do?" she asked in a low tone, dropping her chin on her

heaving breast.

"I'll tell you," he answered, with a smile which concealed dark hints.

"You must learn to lead another life at the same time as this one--a

life that belongs to you alone ... you and a few choice friends. Do you

understand? You must do what a Frenchman once advised: lay out a secret

garden, in which you tend in peace all your favourite thoughts and

wishes. Above all, the things that are forbidden, and which you have

privily gathered together.... Do you understand?"

"All forbidden things have brought me unhappiness," she said

hesitatingly.

"You mean that the law that forbids them has made you unhappy," he

replied; "it's not easy to distinguish between the two. At all events,

believe this, my dear child: that until we make self-culture a

religion, till we have erased the little word 'duty' from our

vocabulary, we are not on the right road. We are simply bruising our

feet by stumbling over the _debris_ with which others block our way

under the pretext of making it smooth for us."

"But sometimes they do make it smooth," she answered, thinking of all

the benefits she had received at Richard's hands.

He smiled at her with indulgent pity. "You seem to be suffering from a

sickness that I call 'chain-madness,'" he said.

"What is that?" Lilly asked again, seized with a dismayed suspicion

that he possessed some occult power, and that he divined the shameful

part certain chains had played in her life.

"It is said," he continued, "that slaves who have worked in the galleys

for years, when they are liberated, miss their chains, and complain

loudly that their legs and arms feel as if they were chopped off....

Your beautiful arms, dear lady, were made to stretch upwards. Why don't

you exercise them more?"

"And my long legs were made for running away," she supplemented with a

tortured laugh, "Only, where am I to run to? that is the question."

"Why be in such a hurry and talk of running away yet?" he asked,

stroking the hand lying in his arm, as if he were talking to a child,

"You'd only run into the arms of another so-called 'duty.' First, you

must acquire inward freedom first you must forget how to be at the beck

and call of those who themselves should be under command."

"Teach me the way," she burst out.

"I will lend you a few books," he said, as if deliberating.... "Books

that will lead you back to yourself. Tomorrow morning I will----"

At this moment they were separated.

That night Lilly, when in bed, lay with folded hands smiling up at the

ceiling. Was she not once more ascending to the heights?

* * * * *

The next day, as the time for his call drew near, she was overcome by a

new dread. She was afraid of him, of Richard, of herself.

This would be the first visit she had received in secret, the first to

break up the tranquillity of her home. So, when she beheld him get out

of a cab with several books under his arm, she ran to give instructions

not to let him in.

When he had gone she pounced eagerly on the books that he had left for

her. Some were printed in Roman characters and looked at a first glance

terribly scientific. But they proved readable. She dipped first into

one, and then into another, and what she read made her blood flame and

rise to her head like sweet wine.

In all, there was a great deal about the "power to will," the

"super-man," the "right to live," and the "gospel of passion." In all,

the purely beautiful was lauded as the end and aim of human endeavour.

In all, the word "individuality" occurred over and over again, and in

every conceivable connection. They all taught you to look down with

vindictive pride on your fellow-creatures, and to despise them as a

debased, tortured, and enslaved race. You wandered in glorious

isolation, accompanied, perhaps, now and then by one or two kindred

souls of lofty superiority, on storm-swept mountain-tops, breathing an

eternally rarefied ether.

In these pages was an unending offering-up of incense to self, an

insatiable self-conceit, a glorification of murder and arson, paeans

sung on such themes as lusts of the flesh, chambering and wantonness.

Thus Lilly's soul became enveloped in a veil of intoxication and

ravishing dreams. She felt as if she were seated in a sapphire-blue

haze, which a far-off glow shot with purple threads. She heard music,

hot and wild, storming on in angry dissonances like armies of maenads

tearing down all obstacles in their way. She felt herself climbing

steep craggy rocks, getting higher and ever higher. She fought against

dizziness, and dared not look back for fear of being dashed to pieces

in the abyss below. But she did not lose her footing; she cut and tore

her hands in clinging to the sharp edges and swinging herself up--up!

Now she was at the top and laughed. Oh, how she laughed down on the

poor scum of humanity who crept about down there in misery and

wretchedness, letting themselves be trampled on and crushed for the

sake of their crumbs of daily bread! ... And then, again, a great

pity overwhelmed her. Why should she alone stand on these wild,

gold-shrouded summits, while all those others had no prospect of a near

salvation? She would have liked to hold out her hand to her poor

oppressed and hungry brothers and sisters, and help them to climb up

too. But they would not be able to understand her or her message of

redemption. Yes, that was what _he_ had called it, a "message of

redemption." She saw their emaciated faces wet with the cold sweat of

death, their glazed fixed eyes, that still could not turn their gaze

from the glittering coin of their wretched living wage. She saw women

in the last stage of pregnancy, thin and distended at the same time.

She thought of the poor factory girl in Richard's packing-room, whose

feverish hands made the doll that she wrapped in paper sway and dance.

She thought of the others who had glanced at her with shy hate and

hopeless envy in their weary eyes.

Once more her affection for the factory, which she supposed on the day

of her shame and humiliation had received its death-blow, awoke within

her with a tender sadness, like the trembling hope of spring in our

souls when the February snows begin to melt.

This had certainly not been the object of Dr. Salmoni's loan of books.

Nevertheless, they discharged their mission admirably in another

direction. The dull gnawing "toothache" became a raging torment. The

wish for a man--any man but Richard--who would understand and sweep her

along with him, this wish possessed her with such overmastering force

that she had scarcely strength left to writhe under its lash.

Surely somewhere the _one_, the only one, existed? Surely some kind

wave of this human ocean would one day wash him to her feet?

One evening she dressed herself in quiet dark clothes, as much like a

dressmaker's apprentice as possible, and slipped out into the street,

as she had been in the habit of doing when Richard's warehouse drew her

towards it with a thousand magnetic threads.

She had no talent for taking walks without knowing where she was going.

So, obedient to the dictates of her reawakened infatuation, she found

herself treading the familiar way to the Alte Jakobstrasse. After

outman[oe]uvring the advances of two old dandies and an impertinent

counter-jumper, she halted opposite the latticed gates of the pillared

entrance.

She crouched for a long time in her sheltering doorway on the other

side of the street, and stared at the building with which her fate had

so indissolubly associated her. To-night, too, there were lights

burning in his mother's apartments. Two jets of the chandelier threw

out a steady flame like her cold clear eyes; the others were not lit,

probably from motives of economy. All that was to be seen of the

factory itself was the top of its huge chimney towering above the roof

of the dwelling-house. A grim greeting, yet a greeting of some sort.

Gladly would she have renewed acquaintance with the dear, forbidden,

laurel-flanked stairs, but she had no longer sufficient courage at her

command to cross the street.

Then, feeling as if she had performed some virtuous deed, she turned to

go home.

She repeated the pilgrimage on three lonely evenings during the course

of the week, and began to regard these aimless rambles as a necessity

of existence. It happened once, when she was taking up her position in

the protecting darkness of her favourite doorway, that a gentleman of

elegant appearance and slender figure, who had come from the same

direction, paused and took off his hat. She recognised Dr. Salmoni. So

horrified was she that she forgot to acknowledge his greeting. If he

were to betray her to Richard, she was doomed. He would imagine that

jealousy or something worse drew her to shadow his house.

"Ah, my charming lady," he began, mouthing his words in a

self-satisfied way, "there is really something refreshing in meeting

you opposite the world-renowned art emporium of Liebert & Dehnicke. As

you know, I am a modest not-inquiring person with a soul, as it were,

still unbreeched, so I refrain from asking you what has attracted you

here--what impulse of the heart. You know the old fairy-tale of the

queen who set forth to find her king, and ended in finding a

swineherd.... Likewise it is possible that a pearl of great price may

have strayed into a bronze manufactory. I should never have permitted

myself the pleasure of following you intentionally. A certain dumb

harmony of line fascinated me and led me on--perhaps a suggestion of

brilliancy behind. But one should never shoot a hare out of season. Let

your fruit ripen, dearest lady, is a very sound maxim, not only in

relation to _soi-disant_ love--but the question is, whether it is worth

while to believe in maxims. They smack of respectability, and

respectability smacks of Virginian tobacco, which stinks, and is

praised far and wide by the multitude, simply for that reason.... I

hope you appreciate the deep truths that lie hidden in what I am

saying, gracious lady?"

"I wish to move from this spot at once," she said. "Suppose that we

were seen here together?"

"As far as that goes, it's the one place where we may be seen together

with impunity," he laughed with boyish glee, "for only the most cussed

imagination would surmise that we had selected this house for a secret

rendezvous. But we'll move on, if you wish."

He offered her his arm, which she refused.

Then they walked together through crooked dark back streets towards the

west-end. He went on talking steadily. One thought seemed to lead to

another. Sometimes it seemed to Lilly as if he had forgotten her

altogether in letting off his fireworks of speech. He revelled in the

play of his own wit. For a long time his conversation seemed to have no

connection with her and her pitiful existence. But she was mistaken;

his gold was coined for her, and he expended it so lavishly that her

brain had not room enough to assimilate it all.

He walked beside her with an elastic, somewhat jumpy step. His cane,

the knob of which he held in his pocket, flicked his shoulder. His

white silk muffler gleamed, and that was all she could see of him. He

talked on and on. How he talked! Often she felt as if she were being

slapped, oftener as if she were caressed. When Richard and his friends

were the target of his jeers, she would gladly have contradicted him;

but he mentioned no names, and, after all, she had often thought the

same.

Tentatively he played on her aristocratic antecedents. He depicted

scenes from country life, and said there was no pleasure to equal rides

_a deux_ in the rosy freshness of early morning. It seemed as if he had

been present at everything she had ever done.

"I have lived a great deal in castles," he said, in explanation. "I

know the life well."

Her past, too, it would seem. So he went on searching into her soul.

When he began to speak of the books which he had lent her, without

commenting on her refusal to see him the morning he called, she made a

mild protest.

"Pray never lend me any more of the same kind!" she implored.

"Why not?"

"They puzzle me and make me ill.... I don't know how to describe it.

You said they would help me to find myself ... but, on the contrary,

they seem to estrange me from everything that I had always thought

before was pure and holy."

"Perhaps that is so," he replied, and his walking-stick danced;

"perhaps this is the first step that I demand of you in the ascent to a

higher life.... By-the-by, let me tell you a little story that comes in

_a propos_ here. There were once two old zealous missionaries who were

conscientiously fired with the desire to spread Christianity in Central

Africa.... Such freaks are really quite superfluous, but they exist,

and we have to put up with them. In order to render their work of

conversion the more solemn and convincing, they took with them a small

portable organ. They dragged it, sweating, hundreds of miles, through

deadly tropical heat into the heart of the interior, where the poor

naked savages resided, on whom they had designs. There they set up the

organ and started their services, but no sooner had the poor naked

savages heard the first notes than they took their cudgels and brained

the two zealous missionaries, because of the evil spirits shut up in

the musical-box. In the same manner life deals with us, my dear lady,

when we try to play it on the good old organ of our exploded moral

prejudices."

Lilly felt powerless to cope with such an overmastering intellect. In

silent submission she bowed her head. And as he now, without asking her

consent, laid her hand in his arm, she dared not withdraw it. They

passed grimy factory walls, the dreary blackness of which was here and

there illumined by the milky blue light of a lamp-post, scaffoldings

stretched skeleton arms against the lurid cloudy sky, and now and then

they heard the bells of the electric tramcars as they ran along

parallel routes.

"Where are we going?" she asked nervously.