Outside on the street the hilt of a sword and the buttons of a uniform
glittered in the noon sunlight of a December day.
"A new one," thought Lilly. The stiff, thickset figure of the man who
clanked up the steps of the porch was unfamiliar to her.
A masterful stamping outside the door. The bell rang more sharply than
usual.
No, she did not know him. He was not a frivolous lieutenant, nor yet one
of the maturer ones, who played the dignified and watched with an
expectant smile for the first shy glance in order to extract from it
whatever they dared.
She saw eyes piercing sharp as a falcon's with a close ring of mobile
crows' feet about them; she saw a severe high-bridged aquiline nose, and
gaunt cheek bones on which lay a well-defined spot of red finely chased
with purple veins. Under a short, bushy moustache she saw thin,
compressed lips, the corners of which turned up in a smile of mocking
benevolence. She saw a receding chin, polished to a shine by the shave,
and disappearing in two limp folds near the high collar.
She saw all this as in a dream. Her heart began to throb so violently
that she had to lean against the bookcase.
"Why, this is what I was afraid of," a voice within her spoke. "This is
the old man."
He raised his hand carelessly to his cap, but did not think of removing
it.
"Colonel von Mertzbach," he said in a voice whose rough intonations
spread a whole world of authoritative power before her. "I should like
to speak to you a few minutes. I have reasons for wishing to know you."
Lilly felt she was to be subjected to a humiliating examination, which
she was by no means in duty bound to suffer. But never in her life had
she seemed so defenceless as at that moment. She felt as if she were
standing in the presence of a judge who had the right to pardon or
condemn entirely at his own discretion.
Her lips trembled as she stammered something meant to express consent.
"You seem to be an extremely dangerous young woman," he said. "Why,
you've fairly crazed my men, especially the younger ones--there's no
managing them."
"I don't understand," replied Lilly, summoning all her courage.
He uttered "h'm," stuck a monocle in his eye, and looked her up and
down, or rather looked down to the point where the top of the counter
cut her figure off. Then he uttered another "h'm," and observed:
"It's very easy to play the innocent in cases like this. However that
may be, I can thoroughly comprehend my young men. Probably I myself
should not have behaved differently. But it seems that despite your
youth and--inexperience, you possess a very respectable amount of
feminine cunning, otherwise you would not have succeeded, in spite of
your irreproachably reserved manner--or, perhaps, just _because_ of your
manner--you would not have succeeded, I say, in bringing the young men
here on repeated visits--they are somewhat fastidious."
Lilly felt the tears rising. It would have been easy to repudiate the
insults he offered her; but from where derive the strength to oppose a
word in defence to this man whose eyes disrobed her and drilled her
through and through, whose smile held her in a wire net?
So she sat down and cried.
He, in his turn, rose from his seat and stepped close to the counter.
"How deeply your sense of honour has been wounded I cannot say offhand.
At any rate, it is not my intention to make you cry. On the contrary, I
should like you to give me with the utmost composure possible a little
information which will enlighten me and which may be of some importance
for your future."
Lilly was conscious of only one thought: "You must pull yourself
together because he wants you to."
She wiped her eyes and looked at him obediently, sniffling a little, as
when she had been scolded in her childhood.
He asked her name, where she had been born, where her parents were, what
school she had attended, and what she was doing in the library. At the
mention of her guardian's name an ironic smile passed over his face.
"I know the gentleman's views," he said. "So, in short, you have been
left absolutely alone in the world?"
Lilly assented.
"And it would not be disagreeable to you to have some mainstay--to know
someone to whom you could turn in moments of need?"
"Where is a person like that to come from?"
"Let me think it over at leisure," he said, wrinkling his forehead. "In
any case, you cannot remain in this hole. Do they treat you well here at
least?"
"Oh, tolerably," said Lilly, and added between laughter and tears,
"Only--the food is bad and sometimes I get--" she was going to say
"beaten," but was ashamed to, and substituted "punished," which was a
perversion of the truth.
The colonel burst into a laugh that sounded like the crack of a whip.
"Very commendable in you to take the matter humorously," he said, and
rose to go. "Well, I know what I wanted to know. My men may continue to
come to you--in uniform, in civilian's clothes, whichever way they want.
They will find no more irreproachable company among the young ladies of
this town. Should they ever forget their manners, just drop me a line.
But I am sure they won't. Good afternoon, Miss Czepanek."
Lilly watched him walk across the porch with the jerky, springy strut of
an old cavalry man. The wintry sun seemed to be shining for the sole
purpose of casting a dancing radiance about his figure.
When he reached the pavement he turned to her window and lifted his cap
slightly but respectfully. The eyes behind the lowering brows pierced
hers, searching, almost threatening. Then he passed out of sight.
Lilly's soul was assailed by a tumult of questions:
"What was it? What was expected of her? Why wasn't she let alone?"
She wanted to cry, wanted to pour out complaints and feel herself
pitied. But her trouble had a certain festal tinge, a certain
shadowyness and unreality. She bedizened herself with it as with a new
hope, and what he had said about some one to whom she could turn in
moments of need re-echoed in her soul like a soothing, easing melody.
Didn't it seem almost as if he himself wished to be the mainstay so
sorely lacking in her floundering young life?
Perhaps he would get Mr. Pieper, who did not concern himself about her
at any rate, to give up his guardianship over Lilly. Or, perhaps the
colonel might even adopt her, or something like that. There was no
knowing.
If only there had not been those dagger eyes, that amused laugh, and
that evil, evil look at the end, and above all her friend's warning: "If
ever he should find his way to you, then may the Lord have mercy on
you!"
However, for all that, what could possibly happen to her behind the
counter? Nobody had ever dared to raise the drop leaf and pass through.
And surely she was safe behind the bookcase L to N, where she could not
even be seen.
The colonel's visit seemed to have acted like a cold douche on his men,
despite--or, perhaps, on account of--the guarantee he had given for
their good behaviour. Not one of them came to visit her again.
"Is that a sign of the protection he is to favour me with?" Lilly
wondered.
Something was missing, she did not know what.
A week passed, and one day the younger sister, who held watch every
morning for possible billets-doux, threw an envelope at Lilly's feet,
saying:
"Something else again, with a coronet on it, you flirt, you!"
"Flirt" was one of the milder titles of honour that the sisters lavished
upon her.
Lilly opened the letter and read:
"My dear Miss Czepanek:--
Remembering the interview that took place between us recently,
I take the liberty of making a proposition to you. The position
of private secretary and reader with me is open. Would you be
inclined to accept it? Since I am an unmarried man, it would be
in better form for you not to live in my house, but I pledge
myself to provide for your maintenance in a suitable and
respectable family. Your guardian, whom I took the opportunity
to consult in the matter, has given his consent to the plan.
--Respectfully yours,
Freiherr von Mertzbach,
Colonel and Commander of the----Regiment of Ulans."
So here it was--her fate!
It was there, on the other side of the gleaming snowy street, beckoning
and calling to her:
"Come out of your hole. I will show you life. I will show you something
new."
But then she pictured herself sitting at the colonel's great desk
writing at his dictation. She saw his eyes drilling her, searching her
soul, and threatening, always threatening. The pen would fall from her
fingers, she would have to jump up and run away, but she would not be
able to; the eyes would hold her in a spell.
So Lilly sat down and wrote a very correct letter declining his
proposition. She fully appreciated, she said, the honour he did her, but
she felt she was not qualified to assume so difficult a position, and
she thought that even if she was not so well off she did better by
remaining in her modest situation, since she could fulfil the duties it
involved. "Very gratefully yours, Lilly Czepanek."
Done! Peace at last restored--as much peace as the bad sisters
permitted.
Christmas was drawing near. It cannot be stated with accuracy that the
preparations in the Asmussen household produced an atmosphere of mirth.
For weeks Mrs. Asmussen had been sighing over the bad times and the
nuisance of having to give everybody in the world a gift. The sisters
discussed as frequently and as loudly as possible the question whether
it was necessary for refined and aristocratic young ladies to share a
Christmas tree with low and vulgar hussies. There was no indication
whatsoever of those gladsome mysteries that at this time brighten the
saddest of human habitations.
Lilly knitted a brown sweater for her mother, bought her two picture
puzzles, a box of sweets, and a wooden vase for flowers--objects of
china, being breakable, were not desired--and sent them to the asylum.
At this time her thoughts frequently wandered from her mother to her
father, who had now been gone four and a half years, and in that time
had given no sign of his existence.
In the forlorn condition she was in, her confidence in his return waxed
strong. Christmas eve, about six or seven, he would suddenly enter, snow
covering his havelock, and draw her into his embrace with that
demonstrative ardour peculiar to him. She almost breathed in the
fragrance always streaming from his anointed locks. That was one way.
Another was, a servant would bring a little package as a preliminary
greeting. Inside would be costly material for a dress. A hat would come,
too. She needed it badly.
After the others had gone to sleep she would fetch from the bottom of
her trunk the score of the Song of Songs and softly hum the more
beautiful arias.
There were some passages which always made her cry. Oh, she cried a
great deal these nights. Yet at this very period a tiny, hesitating
sense of happiness found its way into her being.
It was a lovely, dreamy feeling of being lifted up, of growing wings, of
astonished listening to inner voices, which sounded sweet and familiar
as words from a mother's lips, yet strange, like a gospel from the mouth
of one who was still to come.
Now and then she found herself kneeling in her nightgown, but not
praying, merely dreaming, with arms outspread and rapturous eyes raised
to the lamp, as if the salvation she was awaiting would approach from
somewhere up there.
Thus, after all, she celebrated Christmas in the quiet of her soul.
Christmas eve was at hand.
At the eleventh hour a few gifts were scraped together. The sisters ran
about like wild animals making their preparations. They even bestowed a
few kindly words on Lilly, who showed her gratitude by winking when the
older sister had to look for something near the cash box. Lilly knew
there was not much inside, and should anything be missing later she
would replace it from her own funds.
A few minutes before suppertime she was summoned to the back room, where
the Christmas tree was already lit. The company was embarrassed.
The sisters held out their hands. Mrs. Asmussen, who was already sitting
over her medicine glass, delivered a few dignified words about the
significance of Christmas in general and her misfortune in particular in
having to forego the company of so splendid a husband on such an
occasion.
Then everybody asked everybody else's pardon because the presents were
not more munificent. First of all, there had been a "must," which ought
not to exist for refined souls, and which at first caused great chagrin.
Then all of a sudden time had grown short. Besides, the apron with the
red edge was very decent--they themselves had long been wanting one like
it--and the pen-wiper was not to be despised, either. Above all,
business had been bad.
"I am ashamed to say, I have nothing at all to give," Lilly answered.
But what she was most ashamed of was that she now felt kindly disposed
toward the sisters.
"I haven't a bit of character," she thought, as she bit into the
marchpane which the older, the wickeder one, offered her.
The library bell rang. A lackey loaded with parcels stumbled in and
asked:
"Does Miss Czepanek live here?"
Lilly's heart leapt.
"From papa--actually from papa!" she rejoiced.
For a few moments she scarcely dared touch the packages. She ran about
the room helplessly passing her hands over her hair. She did not venture
to undo the cords until urged on by the sisters. They stood next to her,
staring with great, greedy eyes.
The things those boxes contained! A light cloth dress trimmed with lace,
a delicate foulard dress, a pink silk petticoat, black patent leather
and tan shoes, six pairs of glace and undressed kid gloves, some of them
elbow length, three kinds of collars, a fichu of Valenciennes lace to
wear with empire gowns, books, writing paper, conserved fruit, and more
things, and still more, many more--the boxes seemed bottomless. Even the
hat she had hankered for was there, a simple shepherdess shape of light
grey felt, which shape had always been most becoming to the grand style
of her features. It was trimmed with light brown ribbons and
silver-tipped pompons.
A veritable trousseau!
The sisters began to pull long faces. Lilly, too, soon ceased to
rejoice. She was full of apprehension. All she wanted now was to find a
letter, a card, some token of the sender's personality, which surely
accompanied the gifts. She groped for it nervously. Though she had long
given up all thought of her father and his return, an instinct of
self-preservation impelled her to pretend in the sisters' presence that
it was he, and only he, who had poured this flood of treasures over her.
At last--underneath the gloves--she found an envelope and ran off to the
library with it.
There beneath the hanging lamp she drew out a visiting card and paled
with fright as she read:
"Freiherr von Mertzbach, Colonel and Commander of the----Regiment of
Ulans," followed by a few lines in the heavy, bold strokes with which
she was acquainted: "from the depths of his own loneliness wishes his
lonely little friend an hour of Christmas joy."
She returned to the back room, where the sisters, green with envy,
received her with a chilly smile, while Mrs. Asmussen, nodding over the
steaming glass, dropped fragments of mysterious words.
"The things actually do come from papa," said Lilly, amazed at the
strange, stifled sound of her own voice.
The sisters gave a short laugh, and silently began to put the gifts back
into the boxes.
Lilly was holding a little porcelain bon-bon dish filled with fragrant,
odd-looking confections. She glanced hesitatingly from one sister to the
other without daring to offer them the sweets for fear of being repulsed
with some abusive word or other. She set the lid--a little rose-wreathed
Cupid--back on the delicately cut rim, let the dish sink down among the
other gifts in one of the boxes, crawled to the corner where she slept,
and cried bitterly.
The sisters whispered together a long time. They built a pyramid of the
boxes on the counter and passed by it at a respectful distance.
The next morning Lilly summoned a porter from the street and returned
everything to the donor without a word of explanation.
Then she went to the sisters and said:
"I didn't tell you the truth yesterday. The gifts did _not_ come from
papa. So I returned them."
The sisters, who had come toward her with a sweet-sour air of
attentiveness, made no effort to conceal their disillusionment.
"Well, I didn't take her for such a muff!" said the younger.
"She's not," said the older sarcastically, who, true to her nature,
scented an _arriere pensee_. "On the contrary she's particularly
calculating--wants to drive her adorer still madder. I hope she doesn't
get stuck at her own game. Even the blindest mortal soon comes to know
the difference between false and _genuine_ worth."
Therewith, in order to furnish on the spot an example of the genuine
quality, she drew her petticoat tight about her legs with her left hand
and with her right hand gathered her matinee close under her bosom, and
sent Lilly a smile of utter contempt from over her shoulder, such a
smile as only lofty souls can summon on occasion.
Nevertheless, Lilly noticed that from now on she was treated with a
certain heedfulness, from which she deduced that something was still
expected of her.
During the next few days nothing of importance occurred, though the day
after Christmas a few of the young gentlemen had put in appearance
again. Their manner was jerky as they exchanged their books, they outdid
themselves in politeness and they showed no disposition to make
themselves at home on chair or counter.
Then--the day before New Year--Lilly received this letter:
"Dear Miss Czepanek:--
You shamefully mistook the motives that led me to send you
those Christmas gifts. I feel I must justify myself and bring
about a perfect understanding between us. I have plans
concerning you which I should like to set before you
personally, but my position forbids my visiting you repeatedly,
and I would ask you, if your future is dear to you, to come to
my house to-morrow evening. I shall expect you some time before
eight. I give you my word of honour for your safe return.
Yours,
Mertzbach."
To go or not to go.
That night Lilly did not sleep a wink.
If only the feeling of dread had not obsessed her, dread which robbed
her of breath and the power to defend herself. If the mere thought of
him brought it on, what would become of her should she stand before him
face to face?
She finally decided not to go, while she knew for a certainty she _was_
going.
She lived through the day as in a dull dream.
In the afternoon she obtained permission from Mrs. Asmussen to attend
New Year's eve service. The sisters, who spied upon her every movement,
exchanged significant looks, but seemed too preoccupied with their own
affairs to give hers their usual sweet attention.
Lilly donned the old felt hat which many a storm had buffeted and many a
shower discoloured. Her winter coat made her look narrow shouldered, and
tug as she would, the sleeves refused to reach her wrists.
If she had had her wits about her she would have been much too ashamed
to show herself before so aristocratic a gentleman in that garb. But she
was driven to her acts by something outside herself, not by her own
volition. Strange, mysterious powers seemed to be pushing her, invisible
hands to be helping her dress, smoothing her hair lower on her forehead,
raising the arch of her brows, and opening the buttons at her throat to
give her constricted chest the freedom of its young fullness. They
rubbed her cheeks, pale from lack of sleep, until they glowed with a
triumphant red.
When she reached the street and the frosty breath of the winter evening
stroked her gently, she felt she was waking up at last.
"Where are you going?" a voice within her asked.
"Perhaps to St. Joseph," she answered evasively.
But she did not go to St. Joseph. She made a wide detour about St.
Anne's, crossed the Altmarkt diagonally, saw the sisters sitting at
Frangipani's in the company of two admirers, with difficulty avoided the
assiduities of a gallant, and suddenly found herself in front of the
latticed gateway behind which, four flights up, the sewing machine had
rattled and clattered the last remnant of reason out of her poor, ruined
mother's head.
Light was shining from the two dormer windows up there where Lilly had
once lived.
Some one else was probably sitting there now, sewing shirts and drawers
and nightgowns, day and night, night and day. Lilly, too, would be
sitting there some day, bitterly ruing her lost youth as one regrets an
act of criminal folly.
"If your future is dear to you," he had written.
She faced about abruptly, and ran--ran--ran--without coming to a stop
until she reached the lighted house, in front of which a sentinel was
pacing and freezing as he kept guard over the highest dignitary in the
city.
"Where are you going?" the voice within her asked again.
To avoid answering, she rushed up the wide carpeted stairway and came
upon a lackey in silver-striped knickerbockers, who without question
quietly relieved her of her umbrella, while the shadow of a mischievous
smile flickered across his pudding face.
High white doors were held open for her, red-shaded lamps shone like
great flowers, beautiful bare-shouldered women with tiaras in their hair
smiled down on her from oval gilt frames.
It was so silent and warm in the spacious rooms you could lie down on
the soft carpet and go to sleep. If only there had not been that feeling
of dread which was tightening about her throat and brow like a net drawn
closer and closer.
Another door flew open. Beyond was green twilight, as in a thick forest,
and from out of the twilight _his_ figure came toward her, broad,
resplendent, clanking. She felt her hand being taken, felt herself being
led into the green dusk. Bookcases towered before her like black walls.
From somewhere came the threatening glitter of swords, helmets and
armour.
She did not dare look at him. Even after she had been seated in a tall,
dark arm-chair, whose top hung over her head like a canopy, she had not
given him a single glance.
She heard his voice, whose resounding roughness seemed to have been
muffled to vibrating organ tones.
It was all unearthly, all that she perceived and felt. It was not
heaven, it was not hell. It was a region of anxiety and dreams, where
souls hovered between deprivation and fulfillment in a state of
lethargy.
At last she understood his words. There was nothing unearthly about
them. They dealt most rationally with the Christmas gifts, the return of
which he did not consider final. They were securely stowed away biding
the time when their mistress would graciously deign to receive them.
Lilly with a frozen smile on her lips merely shook her head. She could
not summon the courage to voice a refusal.
"And now you will ask me, my dear," he began anew, "what impels me, a
man advancing in years, to hang on to your skirts like a pertinacious
lover."
At the words, "advancing in years," she looked up instinctively.
There he sat, too sharply illuminated by the light of the green
student's lamp. The orders on his breast gave out a subdued, golden
lustre. The silver tassels of his epaulets quivered and glittered like
little snakes. There was a shimmer upon and around him like the halo
about a saint in gold and brocade.
Confused and abashed by all this glory Lilly quickly sank her gaze
again.
"I went to you that time," he continued, "because a dispute had broken
out among some of my younger men, of which you were the subject. The
matter promised to take a dangerous turn and it had to be adjusted. I
expected to find a pert, coquettish little shop girl, and I found--well,
I found--_you_. Now you will ask what I mean by 'you,' because you
yourself cannot possibly be aware of your good points, or, rather, your
potentialities--everything in you is still in process of becoming. I am
what they call a connoisseur in women, my child, and behind that which
you are to-day, I see that which you will be some future day, _if_--this
'if' is the main thing--if the opportunity is afforded you for proper
development. You might go to ruin among your old books. In case you have
the courage to entrust your fate to my hands, I should like to assume
the care of directing your life into fitting channels."
That sounded composed and paternal.
Lilly felt herself breathing easier, experienced a little relaxing
hopefulness. She ventured to raise her look once more, and beyond the
gold and silver dazzle she saw a pair of brilliant glassy eyes, which
had lost their sharpness and were fairly forcing themselves on her with
a mighty, greedy questioning. The shuddering and stiffening came upon
her anew. She sat there motionless with paralysed will, while she
thought:
"Of what avail? He will do whatever he wants with me at any rate."
He went on.
"I own a beautiful old estate, Lischnitz, in West Prussia, near the
Vistula, to which my duties prevent me from going frequently. My
household there is managed by a middle-aged aristocratic lady, Miss von
Schwertfeger--but her name's immaterial. If you were to go there she
would receive you with open arms, I promise you that, and you would have
an opportunity to develop under the most favourable conditions into the
woman I already foresee in you. Your problems for the time being would
be solved, and I should benefit by finding my home, when I visit it,
lighted by a ray of youth and beauty."
He had risen and in his eagerness to persuade began to pace about her
with short see-sawing steps. Each time he moved there was a clinking and
jingling like delicate dance music played on small bells. Finally all
she heard was this metallic ringing, and she no longer understood what
he said.
She pressed against the back of her chair with an indistinct feeling
that he was tying her with cords, packing her up, and carrying her off
to some spot where no rescuer could hear her cries of distress. She knew
she would not offer the least resistance, so completely was she in his
power.
"Look at me," he said.
She wanted to obey, certainly--oh, she was so obedient! But she could
not.
He put a finger under her chin and shoved her head back. She kept her
eyes almost closed and saw nothing except the red border of his military
coat.
Suddenly she felt herself sinking. The red border mounted to the
ceiling, bees buzzed about her ears--then nothing.
When she came to, something cold and wet was lying on her breast, and a
woman's clothes smelling of smoke grazed her cheek.
The green twilight was still there.
A breastplate was hanging in front of her. It looked like a brightly
scoured kettle.
She did not dare move, she felt so comfortable and easy.
A rough, bony hand kept chafing her forehead and a kindly voice repeated
two or three times in succession:
"Poor little thing! Poor little thing! So young!"
After a time Lilly could not help giving a sign of consciousness, and
the instant she stirred a sure arm came to the support of her head, and
the kindly voice asked, was she feeling better and did she want
anything?
"I want to go home."
"Not so easily done," said the voice, "because he gave orders that he
wanted to speak to you again. But if you'll take a good piece of advice,
say 'much obliged,' and 'good-by,' and be off as quickly as you can.
This is no sort of place for a poor young girl like you."
Lilly sat up, and pulled down her waist.
The cook was standing beside her--a brown, furrowed, thick-lipped face.
Stroking Lilly's shoulder she asked if she should bring her something to
strengthen her heart, a cordial beaten up with the white of an egg, or
something else.
"I want to go home."
"You shall, pretty soon, my dear. But I must call him in first."
She hustled out of the room.
Lilly reached for her hat, on which she must have been lying, because it
was completely crushed and misshapen.
"Now I must certainly get a new one," she thought, and tried to reckon
how much she could spare for it.
The door opened. He entered, followed by the cook.
Lilly was no longer afraid. Everything seemed far, far away. Even he.
Nothing seemed to concern her any more.
"I think she's fit to be taken to the cab already," said the cook.
"You are no longer needed here," he said imperiously.
The cook ventured to stammer another suggestion.
"Get out!" he thundered.
With that she was outside the door.
Lilly experienced merely a lazy sensation of being startled.
"Nevertheless, I'm curious to know what he means to do with me now," she
thought.
But her interest in her own fate was not great.
He walked up and down with a heavy tread. The silver spurs on his heels
jingled.
"We'll have some light," he said. "The subject we're now to discuss
requires clearness."
He summoned the lackey who had smiled the furtive, cunning smile. The
lackey lit the gas jets of the chandelier, and on leaving the room gave
Lilly a glance of wildly eager curiosity, this time without a smile.
Lilly still sat on the couch on which she had come back to
consciousness, twirling her old hat without a thought in her brain.
In the full light of the chandelier she saw the colonel in all his
resplendence still pacing silently up and down.
Lilly could look him in the face without a flutter.
"It's all the same to me what he does," she thought. "I cannot defend
myself at any rate."
He moved a chair in front of her, and sat down--so close that his knees
almost touched her.
"Now listen to me, my child," he said. His words rang out steely and
choppy as words of command at a drill. "While you were lying here in a
faint, I thought about you in the other room, and came to a
decision--but more of that later. You have long noticed, I suppose, that
my feeling for you is not paternal. The older I grow the less I
comprehend so-called fatherliness. To be brief--I am seized by a passion
for you which--rather upsets me. If I were ten years older than I am--I
am fifty-four--I should say: 'That's senile.' Do you know what I mean?"
Lilly shook her head.
She saw his face next to hers so distinctly that, had she never looked
upon it again, she would have remembered it to the end of her days.
His eyes embedded in red puffs, burned and bored again in the way that
had frightened her so at first. His hair lay in bristling strands of
grey at his temples and over his ears, but his moustache was black as
coal, and shadowed his dark teeth like a spot of ink with a white line
down the centre. From his mouth started the two limp folds which passed
his shiny chin and disappeared in the collar of his military coat.
"How strange," thought Lilly, "that I must be the mistress of that bad
old man."
But he wanted it so, and there was nothing else to do.
"If you were to make inquiries concerning me," he continued, "they'd
tell you that despite my age, I know how to subdue women--probably
because I never respected them any too highly. But this time--how shall
I say?--the affair is in a manner peculiar. I need not conceal it--I
cannot sleep. I haven't slept for many nights; which has never happened
to me before. Such a state of matters may not continue, and I pledged
myself to make an end of the absurdity in some way or other at the death
of the old year." He looked at the clock. "I have half an hour still.
I'm expected at a function. In short: it's true, I wanted to seduce you.
That is, for a man of my years, who hasn't anything seductive about him
any more, seduce is not the right word. At any rate not here; I'd given
my word of honour in my letter. But you _were_ in my power--you need not
doubt that an instant."
"I don't," thought Lilly, who was listening to all he said with as
little concern as if she were reading it in a thrilling romance. The old
fear had not returned. She was still waiting with lazy curiosity for
what was to follow.
"If you had showed fight, you would have been defeated all the more
certainly. I am somewhat of an adept in such things. But your fainting
spell occurred, and gave me an insight into your soul. I had to admit I
should never have taken joy in my conquest. You're fine stuff, and I
have no use for someone who would pine. Tearful mistresses have always
been a horror to me. I love my comfort. I have had experiences I should
not like to repeat. So, while you were lying here with my cook to take
care of you, I determined I was on the wrong course."
Lilly had a warm sensation of happiness, as if some great act of
kindness were being shown her.
"How noble, how glorious of him," she thought, "to let poor stupid me
alone."
She cast a furtive glance at his hands hanging between his knees. They
were yellow and long and bony. Had she not been ashamed to, she would
have leaned over and kissed them, to show her gratitude.
The next moment she felt almost sorry that so noble a man should have
nothing to do with her any more.
"I took further counsel with myself," he continued, and his voice was
still steelier, as if tempered in the fire of his resolve. "The idea was
not a new one. It had occurred to me frequently. At first it seemed
ridiculous, then it came to be a last resort, from which I would not cut
myself off, in case circumstances warranted--I am taking that way now.
Why shouldn't I? I'm not very ambitious. I'm too well acquainted with
the vile machinery of the government. It doesn't pay to oil it any
longer than need be with one's sweat and blood. So the idea of quitting
doesn't frighten me--of course I shall have to leave service. Perhaps I
should at any rate. There are days when I can scarcely keep the saddle
because of that cursed rheumatism in my hips."
"Why is he telling me all this?" thought Lilly, not a little flattered
that so great and aristocratic a man should discuss such weighty matters
with her.
"What exercises me more is that a whole generation stands ready to
revenge itself for the robbery perpetrated upon it. To be sure, a strong
hand would do some good. We should have to dare something--why not our
side as well as the other? Well, what do you say, child?"
Lilly did not reply. She was ashamed that she was so stupid as not to
have extracted a single idea from all he said. His words sounded like
Hottentotese.
"Well, will you--yes or no?"
"I don't know--I don't understand what you mean," she stammered.
"Good Lord! I've been asking you all this time whether you'll be my
wife," said the colonel.