He smiled, well pleased at the flattery.
"I am not going to take the world by storm," he said, "but I have my dreams, of course. What would a fellow be worth if he hadn't any?"
"Nothing!" she exclaimed, looking up at him delighted, with beaming eyes. She was sure this was the happiest hour she had ever known in all her life.
When he got up to go she felt actual physical pain, as if a limb were being torn from her body. He had almost closed the door when he turned as one feeling his way, and said:
"If it's not giving you too much trouble, Fräulein, I should be glad if you'd have another hunt for the poems." And then once more coming back he added: "You might put them under the door-mat if you find them."
Lilly lit the hanging lamp at once, and obediently began to look for what she knew she could never find.
He passed the long vacation in the country with a friend in misfortune, with whom he crammed. Directly after the beginning of term the written questions were to be set, and in the middle of September came the viva voce.
Lilly's hero looked pale and haggard, and bristles, like red shadows, appeared in the hollows of his cheeks. Lilly could not bear to see his misery without speaking, so one morning on her way from mass, when she met him alone in the empty street, she stopped.
"You must not overwork, Herr Redlich," she blurted out anxiously. "You ought to consider your health for your parents' sake and the sake of all who care for you."