"Nor I," she replied, laughing.
"You must show what you can do when we're out this evening."
"This evening?" she exclaimed, horrified. "I thought that I was free this evening."
"Free! I don't know what you mean by 'free,'" he answered irritably. "You talk as if our going out together were a sort of martyrdom. You get off whenever you can trump up an excuse. Only yesterday Karla was saying no one knew what you did with yourself when you were alone."
"I should have thought that applied much more to Karla than to me," she replied. "No one even knows her real name."
"That's nothing to do with it. She is not the only person who has remarked how reserved you are. I have been advised by a man to look after you a little more, and not let you go your own way so much. To shut them up I promised to bring you this evening instead of yesterday; and I must keep my word."
Lilly quickly reflected that opposition to his wishes would not help her, and only give him further cause for suspicion, so she bravely choked back her tears and disappointment. But when he was gone she suffered all the more acutely, and her grief and despair knew no bounds.
What would her new friend think of her if he came at the appointed time and found her not at home? She could not send a note to put him off, for he had not given her his address, and he would have twenty-four hours in which to think the worst of her.
As a last resource she confided in Adele. Her dry, sour face brightened perceptibly, for deception of any kind was meat and drink to her. She proposed that the gracious mistress should say that she had been summoned to a friend's sick-bed. Such sad occurrences, she knew by experience, always appealed to gentlemen; and Lilly agreed to act on her advice.
The round-table derived little amusement from her society that evening. She ignored the men and was rude to the ladies. Frau Jula, the only person she wanted to see, was absent, as she had been often of late. They soon left her to her own devices, and the worthy Richard, who had imagined he was going to show her music off, gnawed the ends of his moustache in helpless vexation.