"I won't keep you long, my sweet one. I can see you are expecting a visitor."
"I didn't know that I was," she said, conscious that she blushed.
"Don't deny it, dear.... I know that Dr. Salmoni is coming.... I know, too, exactly how you feel. I, too, have gone through it, and stood, getting pale and pink in turns, as I watched for him.... My morning dress, certainly, was not such a ravishing reseda as yours; it was only claret colour ... but that is all the same; he doesn't mind us in claret colour."
"What do you imply by that?" faltered Lilly.
"What do I imply? ... Why, simply this. Our circle for Dr. Salmoni is a kind of fish-pond of pretty light women, in which he angles from time to time, till he hooks something that his appetite fancies. At present he is hooking you, my dearest."
"That is slander!" cried Lilly, flaring up. "He has never made love to me, nor has such a thing been even mentioned between us."
"Because it isn't necessary," replied Frau Jula; and she laughed maliciously. "The man does not trouble himself with such trifling preliminaries. He knows that at the right moment we shall rise to his bait."
Lilly felt herself getting more and more angry.
"Between him and me nothing has passed but discussions on purely intellectual subjects, such as a freer, prouder, and higher human ideal; and if you, and people like you, can't understand such language; if you are too----"
"Stop, my dear, please," said Frau Jula, "Don't be insulting! There is no occasion. I have come to you with the best intentions. For anyone else I would not have taken the trouble; I should only have smacked my lips. But you--well, I am fond of you, even if you prefer to have nothing to do with me. And you he shall leave alone. And yesterday, when I saw to what a pass things had come, I could give myself no peace.... I felt compelled to come ... before it was too late."