No wonder, then, that his attitude of adoring reverence gradually altered, that he began to be exigeant, at times even a little irritable, assuming the airs of a married man, and reminding her of the benefits he had bestowed on her only very occasionally, it was true, but often enough to convert humility that at first was spontaneous into a duty.
Since Lilly had become his mistress his relations to the outside world had undergone a complete change, so that his whole life was differently ordered. In place of the priggish manufacturer of bronze wares, ever vigilant of his middle-class reputation, he had become a recklessly fast man of the world.
He, who once had been shy of appearing with Lilly in the streets or park, now gloried in exhibiting himself to the public as her cavalier. He bought, instead of the serviceable old brougham, the latest thing in luxurious victorias, in which he delighted to drive with her along Unter den Linden to the Tiergarten. He selected for their evening amusement the most fashionable places of entertainment in Berlin, and took seats where they were certain to attract attention from every part of the house. He sat in the front of the stage-box with a swelling shirt-front, his chin carefully shaved, his hands perfectly gloved, and strove to meet the opera-glasses levelled at himself and companion with a blasé indifferent smile.
He ordered his clothes of the London tailors who in spring and autumn visit Berlin in search of custom. He sported a monocle, and stuck his pocket-handkerchief inside his left cuff. The officer was now more than ever strongly marked in him, and he tried to emulate the effeminate charms of the fops in the Guards.
In brief, all his endeavours were directed to proving himself worthy of a mistress of Lilly's calibre. He soon discovered that possession of so perfect a creature, instead of injuring him, cast an undreamed-of glamour over his career, even enhancing the prosperity of his business more than all his expensive redecorations had been able to do.
The world said: if the senior partner in the firm of Liebert & Dehnicke could afford such an extravagance, it must be doing brilliantly. And many a dealer who formerly had favoured his rivals in the trade now came to him, acting on those mysterious motives of suggestion, the laws of which have puzzled the psychologists and historians of all times. He was addressed with increased respect, yet with that confidential air of jovial banter which the world adopts towards a man of proved steadiness and principle when he is caught tripping. He was much more interesting than in the days of his prosaic virtue. People who before had troubled little about him, and had scarcely even spoken to him, now asked when they were to meet him out of business hours, and hinted that they wouldn't mind making a night of it in his company. Such overtures, indeed, became as common as the Liebert & Dehnicke bronzes.
"By rights, you and your expenses ought to be charged to the business accounts," he said once, smiling at Lilly, who learnt not to resent such tactless speeches.
It had become a matter of habit to go out somewhere of an evening three or four times a week, and Lilly quickly got to know every pleasure in the Berlin vortex of dissipation. It was too late this winter for the public balls, at which mysterious women who have lost caste masquerade in silken dominoes. But to compensate for this there were the variety theatres of lax observance, where the latest and spiciest obscenities from the Parisian boulevards were diluted and dished up and offered to hungry pleasure-lovers as highly stimulating to the appetite. There were the night cafés, where pruriency was draped in literary tags, and flighty women escaped from the restraints of middle-class respectability, competed with the professional music-hall stars for the palm of vulgarity. They frequented bars and grill-rooms and back parlours of fashionable restaurants to which the police forbade lock and key, and where, under the scornfully smiling eyes of correct waiters, dull orgies were held. Lastly came those brilliantly lighted cafés, dense with blue cigarette-smoke, where jaded nerves seek a final pick-me-up in association with prostitution as it parades its wares for sale in the market-place and on the house-tops.
For some time Lilly protested against these distractions; for her senses still aspired to a different and higher kind of enjoyment. She cherished, too, vague feelings of regret that this life of dissipation was drawing her further and further away from those laurel flanked stairs, the goal of her secret longing. But when she saw that every wish she expressed for quiet was met with sullen opposition, she slowly abandoned the idea, and relegated all her dreams of better things to a distant future, when she might look forward to a possibility of their being fulfilled. She dared not let her imagination stray further. Besides, how amusing and fascinating nearly always was this new life! She had every reason to be content with it.
They were not often alone together. There were acquaintances wherever they went. They constantly met Kellermann's carnival guests again. They would fall in with one another informally or make appointments beforehand. They formed a little set of themselves, to which new-comers were always hanging on.