He merely shrugged his shoulders. "A pity," he said; "it would have been a splendid opportunity ..."
He came to dinner the next day the picture of all the virtues in his frock-coat and black cravat. He bowed and scraped, pursed his lips, and was so absurdly deferential that he seemed afraid to take his cup of Mocha coffee from her hand. Fräulein von Schwertfeger's eyes wandered watchfully and inquiringly from one to the other.
Late that Sunday night, after the colonel had gone into town, and Fräulein von Schwertfeger retired early to her room, Lilly was sitting on her bed brushing her hair in her night attire, when she became aware of a soft rattling sound at the window. It sounded as if a branch were being blown by the autumn wind against the shutters, only that it occurred regularly at intervals, growing weaker and stronger, but always persistent. Seized with fright, she first thought of going down to Fräulein von Schwertfeger. But, recollecting herself in time, she threw on a dressing-gown, and cautiously opened the window and a bit of the outside shutter.
For a moment she saw nothing. It was a starless night, and the bailiff's house opposite seemed plunged in darkness; then it dawned on her that something like a rod was oscillating close to the shutter. She opened it a little further--and recognised the pea-shooter!
Then she knew what it was.
Springing backwards she drew the bolt, flung herself into bed, and stopped up her ears with her fingers. But every time she drew them out to listen she heard that persistent regular rattle, which had now become almost an unblushing knock.
The watchman who patrolled yard and park every hour had only to see the ladder leaning against the balcony, and all would be lost. Anxiety deprived her of her senses. Trembling like an aspen-leaf in every limb, she ran into her dressing-room again, where there was no light, opened the balcony door slowly and noiselessly a finger's depth, and whispered through the crack into the darkness: "Go away at once, and never attempt such a thing again." But when she tried to close the door again it wouldn't shut. She listened, but nothing was to be seen or heard. Then she groped with her hands and found the obstacle. It was the inevitable pea-shooter. She moaned aloud, buried her face, and the next moment was lying half-fainting in his arms.
After this evening she was completely in his power, defenceless, and without a will of her own--a victim of his every wish and whim.
It couldn't be called happiness or even ecstasy. That followed later, when she had overcome her horror of their monstrous conduct and fear of discovery was deadened by nothing happening to disturb them, and she could revel in a defiant sense of security. Then it became a blissful skating over awful abysses--a delirium of the senses full of intangible joys--a beatific offering of herself to a lacerating scourge, an alternative ebullition of self-scorn and degradation and blasphemous prayer.