"Then he will suffer like his master," he retorted, catching at his throat to illustrate his meaning and gasping horribly.
Such conduct must not be tolerated a moment longer. She owed it to herself and her position.
"I suppose that you are quite unaware, Herr von Prell, that probably by this time to-morrow you will have been dismissed?" she said loftily.
At last he seemed impressed. He scowled and twirled the fine ends of his young moustache. Then, knitting his brows, he said:
"However bad things may be going, there is some satisfaction to be derived from the fact that the gracious baroness seems to take not a little interest in my affairs."
Now Lilly was really angry. "I wonder you are not ashamed, Herr von Prell!" she exclaimed. "Here am I running great risks to help you, and giving myself a lot of trouble, and yet you persist in talking nonsense."
"We must be careful, Tommy--careful," he said, lifting the fox-like dog in his arms. "First, we are flayed alive, then kicked. But we ought to find comfort in the consciousness that we are innocent, my poor Tommy."
"Please don't try to excuse yourself," she scolded. "Fräulein von Schwertfeger has found out everything ... about your connection with ... you know--your nocturnal excursions to my balcony and entrance through my sitting-room. Everything! Do you suppose that it is any pleasure to me to have to treat you, whom I have always liked, as a criminal? Do you suppose I wouldn't much rather have reason to be proud of you than to see you sent away in disgrace? If you can say anything in your own defence so much the better. I shall be pleased to hear it."
She had worked herself up into such a fever of righteous indignation that she quite overlooked the impropriety of her present proceedings.
Now she was enacting a rôle that enchanted her. She was the benevolent chatelaine, doing her best to rescue an inferior, and her breast swelled with a sense of her exalted virtue. They had emerged from the dusky shadows of the ancient avenue of limes, a ray of light from the afterglow in the west pierced the boughs and suffused his thin freckled face with a deep flush. He appeared to be absolutely crushed and penitent, and Lilly was already regretting that she had been too hard on him.