"The window!" he repeated.
She could not make out whether in approval or blame. The conversation would have certainly come to a standstill here if she had not made a gigantic effort to keep the ball rolling.
"We are neighbours, I think," she remarked.
He sprang up from his bench, sweeping his cap down as low as his trouser pockets, and answered:
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fritz Redlich, prefect."
Lilly felt the old thrill of reverence with which the very word "prefect" had inspired her in the Selecta when her class companions had uttered it. Then she burned with shame to think that she was now nothing better than a shopgirl. But she was determined to impress him by alluding to her more distinguished past.
"Up till last autumn," she said, "I was a Selecta pupil. I used to know some of you fellows."
"Which of us?" he asked in excitement.
She mentioned the names of two young men who had once fluttered round her at the skating-rink, and asked if they were friends of his.
"Rather not," he answered with a contempt that didn't seem quite genuine. "They are slackers, and loaf about too much. They intend to join a corps, too, I believe. That's not in our line."