She threw it. A white flash, a splash below, harsh and shrill, which made her shake in every limb, as if her face had been slapped. And when she heard it, she knew instantly that she would never do it. No, never! Lilly Czepanek was no heroine. No martyr to her love was Lilly Czepanek. No Isolde, who finds in the will not to exist the highest form of self-existence. But she was only a poor exploited and plundered human creature who must drag on through life as best she could. She would not go back to the old round of degrading dissipations, however much Richard might look like a whipped dog. Of that she was determined; and she began forthwith to review the few possibilities left of her earning an honest living.
Perhaps all would come right in the end, though she could not disguise the fact that she had completely lost her zeal for work, and was never likely to find it again. All she asked was to be allowed to live in peace and the exercise of virtue. Did not millions of human beings think there was nothing better?
She cast one more searching glance at the sullenly rolling river in which "The Song of Songs" had found its grave, and then turned and walked away.
In the business circles of Berlin there was a flutter of surprise the following spring when the papers announced that Herr Richard Dehnicke, senior partner of the well-known old firm of Liebert & Dehnicke, art bronze manufacturers, had married Lilly Czepanek, a notorious beauty of the demimonde. The announcement added that the pair had taken up their quarters temporarily in Southern Italy. Those who knew her were not surprised--they said that they had always felt Lilly Czepanek was a dangerous woman.