Lilly did not answer. She was firmly resolved to make no change, and yet it was heavenly to be pressed on the point. It made you feel that you were again of some importance in the world.
"If I had the privilege of selecting for you," he said in his unpretentious, formal way, "I believe I could find you a nook which would be to your taste."
"I don't suppose you could," she replied, half in joke. "We are sure not to have exactly the same tastes."
"I am not so presumptuous as to say that we should. But, nevertheless, I have lately seen a small flat which, unless I am very much mistaken, you would be delighted with. It belongs to a customer, a lady, who is travelling."
"Oh, that's a pity! I should like to have seen it, if only to know what you think my tastes are."
He was lost in thought for a few minutes; then he said, "It can be managed. The maid-servant will not be at home to-day as it is Sunday; but the porter's wife, who keeps the key, knows me, and if you like----"
Lilly demurred a little to intruding into a stranger's flat, but Herr Dehnicke overruled her scruples, hailed a cab, and they drove to a westerly quarter of the town, where the houses looked more imposing and the people more distinguished, and where stately chestnuts shading velvety green turf flanked the blue waters of a canal.
"Oh, happy people to live here!" she exclaimed, and then the carriage drew up at the corner of the Königin-Augusta-Ufer.
Dehnicke jumped out and said a few words at the window of the lodge. A key was handed out, and they ascended the carved oak staircase, which was covered with a thick cherry-coloured carpet. How different from the stone flights of steps which led up to Frau Laue's, and were painful to the feet! He paused on the second floor, pulled the bell as a matter of politeness--for it might happen that the maidservant was at home after all--and then, when no one came, put the key in the door and turned it.
Lilly tried to read the name that was engraved on an oval porcelain door-plate, but in the dusk that prevailed on the landing she could not distinguish it.