"You won't forget your promise?" Lilly reminded her from the top of the stairs.
"Never; no, never! I swear it." And she glided out.
With a whirling brain, Lilly went back to the darkened drawing-room and leaned absently and dejectedly out of the open window to breathe in the freshness of the evening air.
She watched the tiny woman who had just come out at the front entrance trip lightly and gracefully along the pavement.
A man in a tall hat and patent-leather shoes passed her, then hesitated, stopped, and turned back again. As he came up with her he lifted his hat with exaggerated courtesy.
By the light of the street-lamp Lilly saw her face upturned to his, full of curiosity, and with an ingratiating smile, and then they walked on--together.
CHAPTER IX
Richard was reluctant to conform to a more temperate manner of life. He was still eager to be seen with Lilly and to have her admired. But little Frau Jula's lecture had really touched his conscience, and he had not the nerve to set it at defiance.
Nevertheless, he sulked and brooded and yawned, and seemed so bored that Lilly, to cheer him up, was on the point of volunteering to accompany him to the next race-meeting, when news reached her that her mother was dead.
She cried a great deal, and her grief was in proportion to the tenderness of her heart, which was very soft. But in reality her mother had been dead to her for so long that the sorrow she felt at her actual death could not be very deep or lasting.