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 tête-à-tête 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 outré, 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 coupé, 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 recherché--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 débris 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 pièce de résistance 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 coupé 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 manœuvres," 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.