Often when Lilly opened the shutters and the rosy September dawn greeted her, she felt as if the Creator had spread a mantle spun out of golden sunbeams across the sky on purpose to wrap them in cosy seclusion, so that the whole of the world beneath vanished, leaving them alone, clinging to one another intoxicated with laughter and light.
She felt that she grew lovelier from day to day, that there was a sort of radiance surrounding her that made everyone she met gaze at her with admiring wonder, and with a little sadness too, as one looks at a flower unfolding too proudly, too gloriously, for its miracle of blossom to endure.
The two watch-dogs were not blind to the change in her.
The colonel, who was full of craft and guile, failed to diagnose in this case the symptoms. His suspicions would have been aroused directly if she had been melancholy and absentminded, had hung about him nervously, in alternate moods of fervid affection and cold estrangement. Then he would have subjected her to a severe espionage. But her yielding tenderness and happy serenity was a riddle to which he could find no solution; so he gave it up, and tolerated with paternal equanimity his young wife's rollicking gaiety and the embraces she lavished on him to give vent to the ecstasy within her.
Anna von Schwertfeger was also apparently well satisfied with Lilly's happy state of mind and radiant spirits. She seemed as little as the colonel to think it suspicious, or to associate it with the influence of a third person, otherwise she would scarcely have countenanced so willingly the frequent meetings of the two young people.
Lilly now did her best to return the worthy Anna's warm affection, the display of which at first had worried her and left her cold. Fräulein von Schwertfeger often drew her in the evening into her own private room, where she sat with her account-books. It was quite an old-maids' paradise, with its canaries in cages, plants and flower-pots, and faded photographs of family groups and friends. It was full of old bits of china and gilded knick-knacks, such as one meets in ancient and impoverished houses as relics of former grandeur. Or she would come at an incredibly late hour stealing into Lilly's bedroom, seat herself on the bed, and not move till the wheels of the colonel's returning carriage were heard on the gravel. Then there would be discussions on such profound topics as life and death, the loneliness of old age, and the exuberance of youth, which caused grief and trouble when indulged in to excess. She asked no questions, she gave no warnings, yet the astonishing irrelevance with which she jumped from one subject to another, often contradicting flatly her own opinions, indicated that her thoughts were really far, far away.
While her voice droned on monotonously, Lilly sometimes looked up and caught her eyes fastened on her with a expression of melancholy compassion that she was at a loss to understand. Then she was kissed and stroked with such heartfelt, pitying tenderness that she felt touched, and when left alone in the dark began to be afraid of something, as if an avenging fate crouched at the foot of her bed ready to spring on her and devour her.
What misfortune could possibly fall upon her? Was she not securer and more sheltered than she had ever been? Whom did she deceive? What was her offence? And even if her innocent relations with Walter should come to light, would she merit any severer punishment than a lecture such as children get when they have been careless?
These reflections consoled her even before the after-taste of those nocturnal visitations had been lost in blissful dreams.
September wore to a close. Nearly every day brought a ride or an apparently chance meeting at twilight in a deserted part of the park. They would discern each other from afar lingering at some appointed rendezvous, and if a previous arrangement for meeting were frustrated, they resorted to the pea-shooter.