"If you had not interfered," she yelled, "I should have got the receipt out of them, and the furniture would have been unpacked to-night in the new flat. You've spoilt it all, and I shall now have to be at them again to-morrow."
"The new flat!" echoed Lilly. "What new flat?"
Frau Czepanek laughed. How stupid Lilly was! Did she think that she had been doing nothing all this time? And then it all came out. The flat of nine rooms had been taken and they were to move in at once. The plate even was already engraved, and when hung up would have a magical effect. She had made every sacrifice, strained every nerve, that the rooms should be furnished in a way worthy of their exterior. She had bought curtains for twelve windows in a Chinese pattern; six good rugs to bear the tread of students, who wore out cheap carpets like muslin, and large-sized English jugs and basins, in white and gold, to put on the marble washstands. The dinner service, which she had also purchased, was not ready, as it took some time to get a monogram burnt in, but they could make shift with a common set of sixteen pieces for the present. She had expended great care and thrift on her choice of things, and everything would be in perfect taste.
She wandered restlessly, as she talked, round the table in the middle of the room. Her small narrow eyes, that looked as if they hadn't closed in sleep for many a night, glittered, and under the rouge on her hollow cheeks burned the scarlet flush of fever.
Lilly, who began to feel a little uncomfortable, ventured to ask what had been done about paying for the things.
Her question was laughed to scorn. "If you are a lady, you can do anything with the tradespeople. They know that I, as the wife of Kilian Czepanek, musical conductor, am entitled to respect and to credit; or they ought to know it."
"Has all the furniture been taken to the flat?" Lilly queried again.
Frau Czepanek's merriment was renewed. "Before the rooms are ready, you goose? Not likely! Rooms have to be painted, papered, and decorated. I have taken no end of trouble to select artistic papers," she added, with the grand air of a person whose powers of paying are unlimited.
A sickening feeling of perplexity took possession of Lilly. It was like not being sure whether your school-fellows were making a fool of you or not. There was nothing for dinner too, which made matters worse. Lilly set the coffee on the hob to boil and put the rolls on the table. They would have to skip dinner to-day. The Czepanek household had become quite expert in the art of skipping meals.
Lilly's mother said no time must be lost before beginning to pack, and she gulped down her coffee hurriedly. Then suddenly she got into another towering rage.