"Not if you swear by your blessed St. Joseph that it's really nothing but music."
"Yes, nothing but music and the libretto, I swear."
He gave her the roll, and she yielded herself entirely to him ... sold herself at the price of "The Song of Songs" to the man to whom she already belonged.
The early morning sunlight, shining straight in her eyes through the yellow striped curtains, awoke her. She felt herself resting on a sort warm pillow, and was conscious of having slept splendidly. Slowly it dawned on her what had happened. She leaned over to him with the intention of giving him a kiss. He lay with his head thrown back and his mouth open, and the light from the window played on his shining bristled chin. Over his haggard cheeks little red and blue veins ran in all directions like rivers on a map. His ink-black moustache glistened with pomade, and his eyelids were so wrinkled into folds that they must, it seemed, have reached down to the top of his nose if they had been ironed out.
"He's not so bad-looking," Lilly thought to herself; but she omitted the kiss.
She got up noiselessly and dressed herself without his moving. The old cavalry officer was a sound and heavy sleeper.
Lilly scribbled on a sheet of notepaper which she found in the hotel blotter: "I am gone to church," laid the note on his pillow, and slipped down the stairs, past the porter, who was so astonished he forgot to say "Good-morning."
The streets of the little town still slept in the peace of the late winter dawn. The snow had been swept from the middle of the road into heaps along the gutter. A party of crows sat in a circle round the frozen fountain in the market-place. From the distance came the faint music of sleigh-bells. Down the main street boys with satchels were loitering to school. In some of the smaller shops lights still burned and apprentices were sweeping and cleaning the steps, their faces blue with cold. As Lilly went by they stared hard, or called to others inside to come out and gape after her.
The swinging tread of marching footsteps was behind her. A long train of infantry, wearing gloves but without cloaks, came tramping along in the middle of the road. They puffed, in regular time, clouds of frozen breath before them. Their eyes with one accord turned to the left in Lilly's direction as if by word of command. The officers, walking beside their men, exchanged significant glances and shrugged their shoulders.