Directly Lilly entered the box she was the cynosure of all eyes. Everyone speculated as to what the relationship could be between this extraordinarily handsome and distinguished pair, and when after the first act a thousand tongues of light leapt out again from the ceiling, opera-glasses were levelled at them, and a hubbub of questioning comment passed from mouth to mouth.
It was the first time Lilly had ever witnessed a play from a box, and her first instinct was to hide herself at the back, but she had already learnt blind obedience to his commands, and when he pointed to the chair beside him she meekly subsided into it. Then, as she became aware of the universal notice she attracted, that strange numbness and feeling of detachment came over her. It seemed to her when she moved, smiled, or spoke, someone else was doing it all--another person with whom she herself had only a chance connection.
Not till the lights were lowered and the curtain went up again did she awake from her lethargy. Then she followed the poet into his enchanted realms with breathless excitement and delicate thrills of suspense. After this two Lillies sat in the box--one Lilly in blissful self-oblivion flitted through heaven and hell on the rainbow wings of her childhood's phantasy; the other, like a wound-up doll, made stilted gestures and strove unconsciously to imitate the manners of the well-bred, feeling all the time a hot sweet torturing sensation creeping over her, the intoxication of vanity.
Afterwards the colonel, not satisfied with his triumph at the theatre, instead of having supper as usual served upstairs, went with Lilly on his arm into the public dining-room where an Hungarian band was playing, and elegant people supped and displayed their fine feathers. Here the little drama of the box was enacted over again, save that Lilly, carried away by the wild dreamy melodies of the violins, let her awkward shyness drop from her, and expanding a little, with flaming cheeks and shining eyes, dared to play her small part.
Opposite them, two tables further on, sat a fair young man, with expansive white shirt-front and black tie, like all the others. He stared at her with unflinching persistence, as if she were some rare wild animal.
She writhed under the fire of this gaze, that caressed and hurt her at the same time and spoke a foreign language to her with the violins, the notes of which quivered down her spine and throbbed feverishly through her being.
Suddenly her husband turned round and caught the admirer in the act of staring. He pierced him with his dagger-like glance to such effect that the fair-haired man speedily rose and disappeared. But the colonel's pleasure seemed spoilt. "Come, it's late," he said, and led her away.
As soon as he had her to himself again his pride in his treasure broke out anew. It became a sort of unbridled frenzy. Lilly had to undress, as she had often done before, and pose in numerous attitudes, both classical and the reverse. Then, to wind up, she was compelled to don the silver-spangled gauze garment, which he had bought for her during their first days in Dresden, arrayed in which he liked her to dance to him before going to bed. The metal threads sent ice-cold shivers down her limbs, and pricked her skin like needles, but as it was his wish, and his wish was law, she made no demur.
In bed he lit another cigarette, and while she sat on the edge of the bed he amused himself by telling her risqué anecdotes, which he described as "his little girl's lullaby."
After this, the colonel preferred to take meals regularly in the dining-room. He wished to enjoy to the full the piquant pleasure of seeing his young wife openly admired and unblushingly desired. The value of his property seemed to rise in proportion to the extent that he was envied by others for its possession.