With half-closed eyes she filled in the details of the picture that she had formed of him. His beard was small, dark, and double-pointed, and so closely shaven on the cheeks that it appeared only a blue shadow. Such beards were rarely seen in Berlin, though Italians and Frenchmen wore them. His lips were full, hard, and firmly closed, as if chiselled out of marble; his high, square forehead seemed to give him an aspect of wrath, but not the vulgar wrath of an ordinary mortal towards a poor creature like herself; it was like the wrath of the gods--divine.
So she continued to rhapsodise, forgot where she was going and lost her way, to find herself finally on quite the wrong road. Anything might have happened to her in the woods, where unprotected ladies were not safe at any hour of the day from the attacks of tramps. But she scarcely gave a thought to the risks she had run, got into the first tram she came to, and reached home, exhausted but glowing all over, two hours later than she intended.
She could not eat anything, but threw herself on the chaise longue and dreamed.
The bell sounded, and a man's voice was heard at the door. It couldn't be Richard. He never came before half-past four.
Then Adele came in, and said that there was a strange gentleman outside who wished to know if madame had missed her card-case; he had picked one up in the woods.
Lilly sprang up. The little brocaded case, which she had carried in her hand with her silver chain-purse, was not there; she must have dropped it and not noticed that it was missing in her excitement.
"What is the gentleman like?" she asked.
He was tall, young, and handsome, indeed, remarkably handsome, was the information she received from Adele.
"Has he a dark, close-cut beard?"
Yes, he had.