"Lilly meant no harm," interposed Konrad, coming to her rescue. "And certainly the time of stress that we are passing through at present is not easy. If it were not for the help she gives me daily with her understanding and kindness of heart, I am not sure that I could struggle on."
"Very good, very good," he replied; "or perhaps I should say, very pitiable. But your old uncle hasn't had as much as one pretty look or speech from her yet as a seal of our future relationship."
"Oh, that's what he wants, is it?" thought Lilly; and she raised her glass to his, and sought to mollify him with a coquettish little shamefaced smile.
It filled him with evident satisfaction. He twirled his pointed beard, and ogled her familiarly with his twinkling eyes, as if he wished to elicit a sign of secret understanding betwixt them.
"Thank God, perhaps he's not so very formidable after all!" she thought, and gave a sigh of deep relief that the ice was broken at last.
When the waiter came back, a lively discussion ensued between him and Konrad's uncle as to the brands of whisky the hotel boasted.... The debate ended in the manager of the establishment appearing on the scene, and offering to go down into the cellar himself to search for a bottle, which he thought he had somewhere, bearing the label of a certain celebrated firm, and the date of a certain famous year.
Not till this important matter was settled did the old gentleman again devote his attention to his fair future niece-in-law.
"I am an old mud-lark," he said. "I have done business in guano, train oil, Australian pitch, ship grease, and other such unclean things. So you can't wonder at my wishing to refresh myself for once in a way with an appetising object like yourself, dear ungracious lady. All I require is a little return of my interest."
"Ah well, then, I'll just be impudent," thought Lilly. And aloud she said: "You know, Herr Rennschmidt, I am sitting here trembling in my shoes like a poor, unlucky candidate for an examination! I implore you"--she raised her clasped hands towards him--"don't play cat-and-mouse with me."
Now she had struck the right note and given him the opening he desired.