Lilly saw her husband fall for the first time into a lasting mood of thoughtfulness. He paced up and down the room, repeatedly muttering:
"I'll have to box his ears," or "I'll have to look for a second."
The next day, when the colonel observed the importunate person trotting about ten feet behind them, he veered about suddenly and accosted him.
The blond Titan looked him up and down without so much as removing the short pipe from his mouth.
"I may look at anyone I want to, and I may go anywhere I want to," he declared.
With that he slightly shoved up the sleeves of his overcoat and struck a boxing attitude, which, foreboding a street row, stifled all desire for a knightly mode of chastisement.
The colonel in a final attempt to settle the matter in an honourable fashion handed the stranger his visiting card, which was received with a friendly "Thank you, sir." And the colonel's opponent stuck the card in his pocket evidently without the least inkling of the ominous import of the formality. Passersby began to gather and there was nothing left for the colonel to do but turn his back.
The upshot of the rencontre was that the Englishman now assumed the right to honour Lilly and her husband with a greeting, and the colonel, who tried to drown the consciousness of having made himself ridiculous in a torrent of oaths, decided to leave Dresden immediately. This was about the middle of April.
In Munich, where they stopped off a few days to render homage to the Hofbräuhaus, nothing especial occurred.
But the colonel had grown nervous. He cast challenging, pugnacious looks at the most harmless admirers and began to heap reproaches on Lilly's head. "It seems," he would say, "everybody can tell at a glance that you are no lady; otherwise you would not be the object of such a number of indelicate attentions."
At any other time Lilly would have grieved bitterly. Now she listened to him with an absent smile on her lips. Her soul no longer dwelt on German soil. She was breathing the air of the beloved country on whose threshold, she thought, she was already standing.
One night's ride still, a short day in Bozen, and then the gates would open.
Now nothing could intervene.
It was in a section of the express that leaves Munich late in the evening and crosses the Brenner Pass in the dusk of early morning. Lilly and her husband sat in the seats by the window. The seat next to the corridor had been taken by a young man, who on assuming it had saluted the other occupants with a smile, and then paying no further attention to them had become engrossed in a book written, apparently, in Italian.
So he was an Italian, a messenger from Paradise, who had come to bid them welcome. That was enough to ensure Lilly's interest.
She regarded him from under lids to all appearances closed in sleep.
He had a clear-cut, high-spirited face of a peculiar, milky yellow tint, without lines or shadows, as smooth as if enameled. A small, dark moustache, somewhat crispy, and the hair on the temples cropped so close that the skin shone beneath.
Lilly wanted to see his eyes, too, but he kept them obstinately bent on his book, though he seemed merely to be skimming through it.
What she admired most was the peculiar roundness and softness of his movements. You might suppose a woman was clothed in that black and white checked suit, which attracted her by its unusually aristocratic appearance. The silk shirt was violet and dark red, and a green necktie was tied carelessly about the soft collar.
All these colours, strange as they looked, went so well together and seemed to have been selected with so much care and refinement of taste, that Lilly grew quite uncomfortable. She almost felt the young stranger was trying to force himself upon her by his manner and bearing and dress, and above all by his ostensible disregard of her.
It was ridiculous; she was afraid of him.
When the customs officers entered the compartment at the Austrian frontier he uttered a few strange-sounding words, which the officers understood, for they turned away from him with deep bows.
At that moment he raised his eyes and let them rove about the compartment; and while the colonel was opening his bag they rested for an instant, as if by chance, upon Lilly.
What singular eyes he had!
They sent out sharp rays like black diamonds, yet they gave a caress, a wicked, sure caress, which asked impatient questions, questions that made one blush.
The next instant nothing had happened. He was bending over his book as before and seemed not to notice her.
But her husband scrutinised her with watchful cunning, as if he had found a something in her face for which he had long been searching there.
When the train started again the colonel disposed himself to sleep. For the sake of greater comfort he chose the unoccupied seat next to the corridor. The stranger in order not to be opposite him instinctively moved nearer to the centre, by this greatly diminishing the distance between Lilly and himself. A little more and he would have been sitting directly face to face with her.
If she had harboured anarrière pensée, she would have bestowed more attention upon her husband's sleep. But all her senses were engaged in the desire to avoid the stranger, whose proximity pricked her with a thousand needles.
She pressed close into her corner, and spasmodically stared out of the window, where the illuminated interior of the coach was reproduced on the black background as in a dark mirror.
Thus she could observe the stranger quietly, without his catching her in an occasional raising of her lids.
The light of the ceiling lamp sharply lit up his smooth, soft cheeks, whose even sheen merged into bluish darkness at the temple, a cheek formed for pressure and petting. To let your hand stray over it gently must be a great delight.
And what long, dark lashes he had, longer than her own. Their shadow formed dark semicircles reaching to the finely cut nostrils.
Suddenly he raised his eyes and looked at her.
There it was again, that black-diamond, caressing gleam, cold, yet how seductive!
She started in fright, and grew still more frightened at the thought that he might have noticed her fear.
He smiled a very, very faint smile and continued to read.
Her fancy wove more and more anxious, flattering thoughts about him, thoughts tantamount to a crime, which weighed upon her like a nightmare of which she could not rid herself.
Suddenly—an icy stream poured over her heart—she felt a soft, tender pressure on her left foot, which she must have moved nearer to the centre quite involuntarily, for only a short time before it had been close against her right foot, and her right foot touched the outer wall of the compartment.
What should she do?
A rebuking "I beg pardon!" an angry flaring up, would have roused the colonel and given occasion again for suspicion, perhaps even for an encounter. So she slowly withdrew her foot, using the utmost caution, and pressed it against the wall to prove to herself she had rescued it.
But those few moments of hesitation, she knew it well, had made herparticeps criminis, and this consciousness tormented her as the thought tantamount to a crime, which she had permitted to obsess her before.
Dishonoured, besmirched, she seemed to herself, a prey to each and any man that waylaid her path.
Why find fault with him? The thing he had impudently desired, was it not the fulfillment of her own impure wishes?
This notion fairly stifled her. She wanted to jump up, cry aloud, and beg for forgiveness. The stranger continued to read quietly, as if nothing had occurred.
When Lilly started out of a state of wakeful torpor a grey day was peering in through the window. She saw a foaming torrent tumbling into depths below, and beyond gigantic green masses towering into the heavens. It was a picture she had seen only in her dreams, convincing in its greatness, dwarfing all else with its might.
What she had experienced before falling asleep was now a grotesque dream and had lost its vital essence.
She looked about the compartment cautiously.
The stranger was lying stretched out in repulsive sleep. His cheeks swelled and sank as he puffed heavily. He looked sallow and effeminate, and disgusted her.
She turned more to the side and suddenly saw her husband's wide-open eyes resting upon her with a rigid, chastising look. She started as if caught in guilt.
"Are you awake already?" she asked with a constrained smile.
"I didn't sleep a wink all night," he replied.
Something in the tone of his voice set her a-tremble. It was both a rebuke and a sentence.
And how he looked at her!
They rode on without speaking. Lilly utterly disregarded the stranger.
At the hotel in Bozen the colonel entered Lilly's room and said:
"My dear child, I have something to say to you. I am tired of the annoyances to which we are subjected day after day. To what extent your appearance and conduct are to blame, or to what extent my age is the cause, I will not discuss. However that may be, I do not reproach you with gross infringement of the laws of duty or good taste. And I may not demand agrande dame'smatter-of-course reserve of one who two or three weeks ago was serving behind a counter. To teach you propriety requires time, and it is a matter that I may leave entirely without qualms of any sort to Miss von Schwertfeger. We will take the noon train back to Germany and we will reach Lischnitz day after to-morrow in the evening, perhaps earlier in the day."
Lilly did not even grieve, she felt so humiliated and bruised.
And the land of her dreams sank below the horizon.
They reached Lischnitz late Saturday night. Since the colonel had prohibited a formal reception, all Lilly could see of the castle and outbuildings were black shadowy masses, which the veiled moon painted light on the edges.
A couple of servant maids stood on the steps holding lanterns, and a very slim lady with a wasp-like waist and a halo of red hair streaked with white put a pair of long, extremely thin arms about Lilly's neck, and in a melancholy, cracked voice spoke motherly words of welcome, which, though intended to bring about a speedy friendship between them, intimidated Lilly and inspired her with dread.
Overcome with weariness, Lilly sank into a swelling white bed, with gleaming brass rods draped in light blue ribbons, the bows of which perched there like great exotic butterflies.
It was these butterflies which the next morning carried her from a doze into full wakefulness, into the new existence.
From the ceiling hung a gilded lamp with opaline shades and blue silk covers over the shades. A white-enamelled wainscoting about four or five feet high ran about the entire room, and the walls between the wainscoting and the ceiling were panelled in silk of the same light blue as the counterpane and scarfs set in frames of white enamel.
All this was revealed by a beam of light, which came in through the narrow space between the curtains and threw a shining bridge across the Persian carpet of a yellowish colour intertwined with blue.
Joyfully Lilly sprang out of bed and trod on the carpet, which seemed to ripple in waves, so soft and long was its nap.
Nothing of the colonel was to be seen or heard.
Long before, he had told Lilly his bedroom would be apart from hers. "But it cannot be far off," she thought; "it must be on the other side of that shining white carved door."
Opening it softly she peeped into the next room.
The window curtains had scarcely been drawn aside. The bed, a huge piece of dark mahogany, was empty, though the crushed sheets and pillows testified to its having been occupied. There were engravings of racers on the wall, tall boots, whips, pistols, some uniforms, and on the round side-table a rack for pipes, and next to the bed the tube of gout ointment. So, the evening before, though it was her sacred duty to massage him, he had treacherously done it himself.
She felt hurt, and then a little shudder ran through her. It was all so strange and hard, as if mysterious threats were lurking somewhere.
She hastily shut the door and retreated into her sky-blue silk realm.
Her room had two other doors, one of which opened on the corridor. This was the one through which Miss von Schwertfeger had led her in the night before.
Lilly shuddered again. Without question, without asking permission, the thin, melancholy person of the extinct eyes and commanding manners had taken possession of Lilly. The colonel and his housekeeper had exchanged a glance, a brief glance of mutual understanding, which, on the colonel's part, said:
"I put her into your charge."
And Lilly was thrown on Miss von Schwertfeger's mercy.
The lady, to be sure, had afterward tried to insinuate herself into Lilly's good graces by calling her pet names and embracing her, and with her own hands bringing the comforting cup of tea to Lilly's bedside. But a voice within Lilly, who usually flew to meet everybody, whether man or woman, with expectant trustfulness, had called to her:
"Be on your guard."
While staring at the door which the spidery fingers had thrown open for her the night before and faint-heartedly recalling the incidents of the arrival, Lilly was overpowered, there in the midst of her gay glory, by a feeling of strangeness and solitude, which nearly broke her heart.
She rapidly put on the morning gown, which Miss von Schwertfeger must have unpacked and hung next to Lilly's bed after she had fallen asleep.
The third door had still to be investigated. Lilly hoped it would lead out into the open.
She cautiously turned the knob and drew back with a little cry. What she saw fairly dazzled her.
A small room flooded with sunlight and filled with flowers smiled at her like a tiny paradise. Azaleas as tall as a man spread their rosy coronets over a much-becushioned couch. And there was a dear little secrétaire inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tortoise shell, over the top of which a palm placidly waved its flattering fronds. But that was by no means the most beautiful thing. The most beautiful thing was the toilet table, which sent a lovely, shamefaced greeting to her from the corner where it stood. It was draped with white lace and the surface was covered with a large, smooth, even-edged plate of glass. The mirror was tall and composed of three adjustable faces, so that you could see yourself on all sides—the hair at the back of your neck, the fastening of your dress, everything.
Lilly had long desired such a mirror, but had not dared to ask for it.
The room, doubtless, was her "boudoir."
She, Lilly Czepanek, owned a "boudoir!" Was the wonder conceivable?
On the glass plate lay all sorts of things which you couldn't take in at first glance, yet expanded your eyes and your soul like a divine revelation. There were ivory-backed brushes—three—four—of varying degrees of hardness or softness; an ivory-backed hand-mirror with a charmingly carved handle, a powder puff in an ivory box, a glove buttoner, a shoe horn, everything of silver and ivory. And many more things, mysterious in their functions, the significance of which would have to be learned gradually. On each shone resplendent the gold monogram L. M. with a seven-pointed coronet above.
It was enough to set one wild.
After having inspected her treasures to her heart's content, Lilly prepared to extend her expedition of conquest to outlying districts.
The room in which she was had only one window, or, rather, a glass door, leading to a balcony, on which there was a rocking chair, and the high railing of which was partly overgrown with young creepers. Later in the season, when the leaves had unfolded all the way, a person standing on the balcony would be completely screened by walls of green; but now, in early spring, there was still so much space between the shoots that he might easily be seen from below.
Lilly softly opened the casement door and slipped out into the open air.
To the left, rising above a wall, were the barns and stables, which formed a large quadrangle about the yard. To the right, giant trees, a chaos of mazy, moss-green branches set with the golden-green buttons of the leaf buds. Inside the labyrinth the birds kept up a scandalous riot, which deafened one's ears as with a hail-storm of sounds. Straight ahead, about thirty paces away, rose the gable roof of an ancient one-story structure, which also bordered on the park wall and seemed to open in front on the yard.
There at last a few mortals were to be seen. Two gentlemen, one with a round grey beard, the other stout, middle-aged and copper-coloured, were walking up and down the lawn at the back of the house smoking and conversing, while a third—
Who was that?
The slim, sinewy young man with the high collar and light yellow gaiters, sitting at a window, pulling a red dog to his lap by a thin chain, that was—no, impossible!—yes, it was—it actually was—Walter von Prell!
It was her merry friend, who had, so to speak, slunk off around the corner, the little lieutenant, famed as one utterly devoid of moral fibre—the only man that had ever kissed her mouth.
Except the colonel, of course; but the colonel didn't count.
There were the silvery white lids and the clinking bracelet and the mute laugh, which shook him like a storm each time the red dog with the pointed ears fell from his knees. The only change in him was that the close-cropped, velvety head of hair had been replaced by a somewhat unkempt growth shining with pomade.
Lilly laughed aloud and stretched her arms to him.
"Mr. von Prell! Mr. von Prell!" she was about to call out, but checked herself in time.
No matter—now, she knew, she was no longer solitary in that strange world. Her merry friend was here, her comrade, her playmate, the man to whom she owed her good fortune.
She remembered his having said, "The old man has taken a tremendous liking to me and wants me to run about his estate as Fritz Triddelfitz"—Lilly knew her Fritz Reuter well.
Strange that in all these months it should not have occurred to the colonel to mention a word about Von Prell's being at Lischnitz. To be sure, he had seldom spoken of his estate. Even Miss von Schwertfeger cropped up in his mind only when he wished to reprimand his young wife.
Perhaps he suspected it was Von Prell and no other who had discovered Lilly and brought her forth from concealment. However, she would tell the colonel and Miss von Schwertfeger without an hour's delay that she had met an old acquaintance. They need not be informed of the kiss. To what end? It had no more significance than a kiss in a game of forfeits.
She slipped back into the bedroom, and a moment later, while she was drawing aside the window curtains, someone knocked at the door—three short, sharp, rapid taps, which seemed to probe to the marrow of her bones.
It was Miss von Schwertfeger, of course. Who else would have frightened Lilly so?
Lilly received a kiss on her forehead; and her cheeks were patted with every appearance of consideration and fondness. But the great colourless eyes travelled silently up and down her body, and a wry, bitter smile hovered about Miss von Schwertfeger's fleshy yet severely cut mouth, the skin about which was reddened, as often happens when women with a fine skin age before their time.
She carried clothes thrown over her arm, which Lilly recognised as her own.
"I brought you these necessaries, my dear," she said, "so that you can dress this morning. Here in the country we don't go about in matinées. Besides, directly after you have breakfasted, we will make a little tour of the grounds to give you an opportunity of getting acquainted with the household and the people."
"May I keep house myself?" asked Lilly, hesitatingly.
"If you know how," said Miss von Schwertfeger, and gnawed her lips and squinted.
Lilly vaguely felt that her harmless query suggested the infraction of the housekeeper's rights, and, trying immediately to atone for her thoughtlessness, she added, stammering:
"That is—I am only asking for what I will be—"
She was going to say "permitted," but Miss von Schwertfeger interrupted her and said, drawing herself up:
"My dear child, you are the mistress here; nobody is better aware of that than I. But I mean well by you when I advise you to ask for nothing at present. Pay attention to nothing but your deportment. Upon that depends how soon you will really be that which, unfortunately, you are now merely in name."
Lilly, depressed and humiliated, maintained silence.
The disciplinarian was already showing her fangs.
"And I advise you," she continued, "to bear in mind that you must first study the ground you will have to tread in the future. For this you need a guide, who knows a thing or two of which you are ignorant. Otherwise you will find yourself in difficult situations, from which it will be impossible to extract you. And that in view of your relations with the colonel, would be greatly to be deplored."
Lilly felt the tears rising. The old inability to defend herself, which was her gravest weakness, took hold of her again.
"Oh, please," she begged, folding her hands, "don'tyoufeel hostile to me."
Miss von Schwertfeger's extinct eyes, which lay half buried under heavy lids, lighted up—was it with a question, or with amazement, or pity?
For a moment she stared into space, turning her head aside, and Lilly saw a noble, bold profile of cameo cut, which appeared to belong to a different person.
Then Lilly felt long arms about her neck. The embrace in which she was held seemed warmer, more genuine than any of the caresses Miss von Schwertfeger had yet bestowed upon her.
"You're a dear child, youarea dear child," said she, and with that left the room.
Half an hour later Lilly, dressed in the garments Miss von Schwertfeger had brought, entered the dining room, where breakfast was being served by old Ferdinand, a dried-up, spindle-legged heirloom of a servant. That smooth, round-faced fellow with the mischievous smile, had been dismissed, thank goodness!
The colonel came in from his early ride, his eyes sparkling with the pride of proprietorship. The little crisscross veins of his gaunt cheeks were filled with blood, and the grey brushes over his ears glistened with dew drops. The heavy jacket he wore was becoming to him, and the O-shaped legs were hidden under the table. He looked like a kingly old warrior, both evil and kind-hearted.
Lilly flew into his arms, and he said with a sweep of his hand about the place:
"Well, do you like—your home?"
She kissed his hand for the "your home."
The dining room was a long chamber, arched at each end and filled with carved pieces of furniture darkened by age. It was only moderately lighted by three large bow-windows giving upon the terrace, from which a flight of railed stone steps led down to the park.
At breakfast they discussed the walk they had planned for showing the young mistress her new realm. The colonel would not hear of such a thing as having the people come to the castle and wait upon Lilly ceremoniously. They were wearing their Sunday-best that day at any rate and with no derogation to themselves could receive her in the spots where they lived and toiled.
The upper employés, the inspectors and bookkeepers, would come to dinner Sundays, as had been the immemorial custom, and take that as the occasion for paying their respects.
"The youngest of them used to be one of my men," remarked the colonel, "a Mr. von Prell—" He stopped short, looked Lilly over thoughtfully, then, as if reassured, continued: "But he left service some time before I did, and he's to learn farming on my estate."
This was the very moment for Lilly's happy avowal. But the words died on her lips. She could not—for all her good intentions, she could not. As it was, those great colourless eyes, resting on her face, were putting her to the proof.
However, one thing was certain—the colonel knew nothing. His silence had been due simply to the fact that he had not deemed the gay dog worthy of mention.
"How's he behaving?" asked the colonel, turning to Miss von Schwertfeger.
"Oh, Colonel," she said with a smile, regarding her long, bony fingers, on which her crescent-shaped nails shone like mother-of-pearl, "you know I never denounce unless I have to."
"Such a good-for-nothing rascal," laughed the colonel.
Lilly, instinctively taking her friend's part, thought the lady's words were in themselves sufficient denunciation.
After breakfast they started out on their little expedition.
Lilly was placed between the colonel and Miss von Schwertfeger, and a pack of dogs all of a sudden appeared to keep them company. Lilly thought them more likable than anything else about her.
The kitchen was visited first. A perfect marvel of a kitchen, with tiled walls, porcelain sinks, and all sorts of up-to-date arrangements. Lilly did not know at what to look first.
A face was there, an old, brown, furrowed, thick-lipped face, with a pair of moist eyes turned upon Lilly in mute questioning:
"Don't you recognise me?"
Lilly's eyes answered:
"Yes, I do."
But she did not dare to speak with her lips as well as with her eyes, for fear Miss von Schwertfeger would inquire concerning the decisive moment of her life and come to despise her still more.
She gave the old woman her hand, and the bond of friendship was renewed.
Next they went to the servants' kitchen, where the Sunday soup was bubbling like a seething sea in a huge copper vessel. After this came the laundry with its wringers and mangles resembling brightly armoured monsters. It was good to smell the ancient odour of soap which had nestled permanently in every nook and cranny.
In the pantries and storerooms, rows of hams wrapped in grey gauze depended from the rafters like gigantic bats. Sausages hung there, too, and last winter's golden pippins and other fine apples were still lying on straw beds. Long lines of wide-mouthed jars were ranged on the closet shelves—you could pilfer sweets to your heart's content.
The party now cut diagonally across the paved yard, where the waggons and harvesters stood like soldiers on parade, to the barns and stables.
The stable of the pleasure horses! Heavens! It was like a drawing-room. Upholstered wicker chairs with footstools in front stood about invitingly. A matting strip ran along the stalls, over each of which a porcelain plate proclaimed the name of the noble animal within. The horses moved supple, slender, lustrous necks and turned knowing human eyes to greet their beautiful mistress.
"You will choose one of these for yourself," said the colonel.
"I don't know how to ride," replied Lilly, embarrassed.
The grooms standing about, cap in hand, grinned at her uncomprehendingly. A lady who could not ride had never before stepped into their world.
The home of the draught horses was not nearly so interesting; it was dirty and malodorous, and the cow stalls nauseated Lilly.
But she took good care not to betray her sensations. Ready to learn, she patiently listened to the explanations the colonel and Miss von Schwertfeger gave in turn.
A difficult piece of work was still ahead of them, the visit to the cottagers, who had just returned from church and were standing before their doors in expectant groups.
The oldest and most trustworthy came first. There were many new names to learn, many dirty hands to shake and many eyes to look into which stared at her in respectful suspicion.
Lilly felt she was fairly well able to cope with the situation. She found a few friendly words to reach the hearts of the old and the sick; and when she stooped and drew on her lap a blubbering little urchin a pleased whisper ran before her to smooth her path.
At the end of the settlement were two structures originally erected for barns, but later converted into dwellings. Small windows in red and blue frames were set in the walls at irregular intervals, and what had once been the broad entrance had been built up with yellow bricks.
Here lived the Polish immigrants, who had come as contract labourers from distant regions. The district in which Lischnitz lay had been German from times of old and had remained a German island amid the invading flood of Slavs.
For this reason it was necessary to hold aloft the banner of Germanism, as Miss von Schwertfeger admonished lovingly. And Lilly felt mortified, as though she had been in the habit of disavowing it.
Red head cloths gleamed. Great, blue, intimidated eyes prayed to her. Here and there an awed bobbing to the hem of her skirt, a shy attempt to kiss her sleeve.
"Niech bedzie pochwalony Jezus Chrystus," she heard in a whisper about her, and involuntarily she answered: "Na wieki wiekow!Amen!"
In the course of her Catholic bringing up she had learned that this is the answer to a Polish greeting.
A glad humming and buzzing, a ripple of happiness ran through the fearsome huddling little group. The lovely youngpanahad spoken their language, the language of their God.
"I had no idea you could speak Polish," said the colonel, his voice grating with blame of her.
Lilly gave an embarrassed laugh and explained.
They tarried a shorter time at the next entrance, where a group of young fellows in heavy grey jackets were twirling their caps and making awkward bows. Lilly scarcely ventured to give them a cordial nod. Even that, she felt, was forbidden.
Miss von Schwertfeger said not a word, but with aquiline nose in the air held aloft the banner of Germanism.
"Now, my dear," she said when they reached the castle door, "put on your dark blue cloth dress. I have already had it taken from the trunk and pressed. You will find it in your room, and a lace collar to wear with it. That is the correct thing here for Sunday dinner, which we take in the middle of the day."
Lilly obediently donned the blue gown. It enhanced her slim grace. Her heart beat for fear that her merry friend, who could not suspect she had disowned him, would betray both of them at the first meeting by a careless word of recognition.
The dinner bell rang and the next instant came those three probing taps on the door.
Lilly in alarm started away from the mirror. Miss von Schwertfeger should never discover she was vain. She looked Lilly up and down a while, then grasped both her hands, and buried her pale blue eyes, which now flared up again, in the improbable eyes.
"God grant," she said, "that you don't cause too much mischief in this world, my child."
"Why should I cause mischief?" Lilly faltered, mortified again. "I don't do a bit of harm to anybody."
Miss von Schwertfeger laughed.
"The one good thing is, you don't know who you are," she said, and drew her to the corridor and down the old stairway, which cracked at every step.
In the dining room were four dark men's figures besides the colonel's. At Lilly's entrance they hastily drew up in line.
One was the man with the round grey beard—"Mr. Leichtweg, our chief inspector," said the colonel. The next was the stout, copper-coloured man—"Mr. Messner, our bookkeeper." Somebody else was introduced, and then—then—
"Lieutenant von Prell, who is learning farming here," said the colonel.
Just a slight inclination of her head, the same as to the others, no more.
But my poor, merry friend, how you look!
A long frock-coat fell below his knees, his narrow-pointed head was lost in his high collar, his clothes hung in loose, limp folds. Every feature of his, every marionette movement bespoke rigid formality and obsequiousness.
Lilly stood there lost in pity and astonishment. If she had not seen him that very morning while he was—
"Shake hands with the gentlemen," she heard whispered behind her.
She started and pressed the honest country fists more firmly than beseems a chatelaine. But she quickly let go Von Prell's freckled hand, which was still well kept.
"Thank the Lord, he won't betray us," she thought.
Then came grace.
The finches were the maddest of all. The titmice, too, made a racket, and so did the nuthatches, and the blackbirds behaved as if they were lords of the place, while the stay-at-home starlings formed in groups among themselves and paid no attention to the rest of the world. Beside, there were the hedge-sparrows and wrens, who added a fair share to the chorus. But the fanfare of the finches was too much for ears accustomed to the tiny twittering of a caged canary.
Old Haberland knew them all. Old Haberland was the gardener, who pottered about in felt shoes and lived, in a measure, from the colonel's bounty, since he held sway now over nothing but the lawn sprinkler. He knew which birds nested on the ground and which in the branches. He knew the time each began to sing and the best place to stand if you wanted to study their plumage and habits.
It was terrible to think that the squirrels had to be shot. Lilly almost hated the old man when he sallied forth, his pea-rifle under his jacket, with evil intent against the jolly little marauders—Haberland maintained the vermin recognised his gun and scurried off when they saw it. The magpies and jays were no friends of his, either. His love was the shy, green woodpecker, whom he had actually coaxed into nesting in the park. And that gay marvel of a bird, the hoopoe, came without fear at any hour of the day to the back of the castle, where it sang its hututu and transfixed the insects in the grass with its curved sabre of a bill.
Those were mornings full of glow and brilliance, such as could not have been since the creation of the world.
When you opened the door at five o'clock in the morning the cool purple mist crept in and folded itself about your body like a royal mantle. On the pond, where the reeds rose up over night, pushed by underground powers, lay sunlit vapours, which gradually lifted and ascended heavenward. Everything steamed. Sometimes white lights seemed to have been kindled on the lawn, and the little clouds in evaporating rolled heavily from the glistening campions, as though surfeited with the dew they had drunk.
Such mornings!
Who can describe the mad delight of the dogs when their beautiful young mistress appeared on the steps smiling, clad in a white blouse and short skirt and armed with garden shears? They had been awaiting her there a long time, every now and then emitting short, impatient sounds, half whine, half yelp. Fortheyhad not hesitated an instant to recognise her absolute rule, in utter disregard of the pitying benevolence with which Miss von Schwertfeger—whom they detested—stood by and smiled.
Bebel, the terrier, the cleverest of all, did not count, because he sped after the colonel on his early cross-country gallop. But there was Pluto, the long-eared setter, who, out of employment at this season, gave chase to the rabbits on his own account. There were Schnauzl, the poodle, and Bobbie, the dachs, living in constant feud with each other for the first place in Lilly's favour. Dearest of all was Regina, the panther-like Great Dane, one of whose forelegs had been broken. As if to apologize for her disgraced existence, she always crept back of anyone she met; but at night, to compensate, she was untiring in her watchfulness, and maintained a steady reign of terror.
Who can describe the joyous caracoling of the colts in the pasture, the craving for love the yearling manifested when the mistress, who always carried sugar with her, pushed back the bars, and stretched her arms to caress the slender heads of her favourites?
Who can describe the chagrin of the turkey cock, great enough when the pheasants got first peck at the bread crumbs, but knowing no bounds when those stupid ducks squatted right on Lilly's feet, as though that were the most natural thing in the world? At times his jealousy so swelled him with rage that he even dared to nab one of Pluto's ears. But Pluto disdained to do more than shake him off in scorn.
Yes, those were wonderful mornings!
And when the height of the flowering season came, she never wearied of wandering about and filling baskets with blue, golden and snowy blossoms until she was fairly drowned in a floral sea.
After the morning stroll came breakfast, when from sheer joy and tenderness Lilly hesitated about whose neck first to throw her arms, the colonel's or Anna's—on certain confidential occasions she was called Anna. Lilly, in general, was very affectionate with Miss von Schwertfeger, despite her fear of that lady's censoriousness and despite other fears of which she could not rid herself.
Yes, she thought, it was a strict school, indeed, which she had entered.
Not a word, not a step, not a movement remained unobserved, or, if necessary, unreproved. She learned to sit at table and in an arm-chair, how to prepare and serve tea, how to invite a person to be seated, how to begin a conversation, how to introduce strangers to each other without getting into a muddle, how to pass over forgotten names, and offer everybody at table a fair portion of cordiality. All these things Lilly learned, and, oh, much more.
But they were only the rudiments to be practised in the small world of the castle or when occasional visitors dropped in. Real instruction was to begin in the fall; for then expeditions to neighboring estates would be undertaken. In the meantime the colonel wished to avoid all contact with the families round about. He could do this without provoking comment, his long bachelorhood serving as a plausible pretext for wishing to prolong his honeymoon to the utmost.
By autumn Lilly was to have been converted into a veritablegrand dame, who would do honour to her husband's name and rank, and whose tact and ease would conquer all mistrust whether at the festivities in the homes of the gentry or in the club house.
This, the highest ideal on earth, Miss von Schwertfeger kept before Lilly's eyes every minute of the day, and Lilly dreamed of it as she had dreamed of approaching examinations when in the Selecta. Full of fears and doubts she worked over herself night and day.
Her soul found calm only when she went on one of her rambles, or, better still, when she sat behind locked doors in her boudoir.
No, no, Heaven preserve her! Not her boudoir! That wasn't its name.
The first time she had said "boudoir," Miss von Schwertfeger turned very condescending. It was a sitting-room. Only butchers' and bankers' wives—in Miss von Schwertfeger's eyes one and the same—would disfigure it with the other name.
Thus Lilly stumbled at every step.
Occasionally, when he quartered officers on their way through the country, the colonel, as if to test Lilly's social ability, would have her preside at table with Miss von Schwertfeger's assistance.
Each time the same scene was enacted. At first Lilly would be stiff as a mechanical doll, incapable of addressing a word she had not learned by rote to these guests gleaming in military resplendence. A glass or two of wine would give her courage. Gradually she would liven up, and even grow merry, and finally bubble over with harmless pleasantries—from where they came flying into her head she did not know—which would so enrapture the gentlemen, most of whom were well past their prime, that they directed all their remarks to her, as if to pay her court, while their eyes hung on her face in enjoyment and desire.
Now the colonel would grow uneasy. He would cast furtive glances at Miss von Schwertfeger, who usually sat with her eyes on her plate and a wry smile on her lips; and then despite the gentlemen's protestations of regret, the ladies would leave the table.
Lilly grew hot with the fire she herself had kindled in the heads of her guests. It caused her pleasure and distress, and forced her to sit at her window until midnight, staring into the blue twilight of the park with beating heart and quivering nerves and flushed cheeks streaming with tears.
Forebodings of mad acts and riotous self-abandon flashed up in her brain. A parching fever enervated her body. Her clothes, her room, the park, the world became too contracted. A wild dance of looks and flames, a whirl of fiery red, inured, desirous masculinity chased through her head.
On such nights, when the guests had at last retired, the colonel, more or less intoxicated, would force himself into her bedroom, and begin by reproaching her for not having been ladylike enough. Lilly would cry and try to excuse herself. Then he would kiss the tears from her lashes, snatch her clothes from her body, and throw himself next to her in bed.
Shuddering with foolish pangs of conscience, quivering in disgust of his drunkenness, happy, nevertheless, to feel that tormenting tenseness relax, she gave her body up to him.
On other nights when she felt uneasy and alone and desired his presence, when her body as well as her soul longed to cling to him in the humble sense of belonging to him entirely, then he was not to be had. He kept his door locked.
On the whole he was loving and gracious to her. He handled her as if she were a gay, fragile toy, to be wound up not too often, and each time it has been played with enough, to be laid aside carefully for use on the next occasion. This treatment suited her. At least she was spared dread of those outbursts of wrath which set the walls a-tremble two or three times a day, and frightened every living thing in the vicinity. Even Miss von Schwertfeger was not sure how to take them. She silently set her teeth, and bowed her head as before the inevitable.
Lilly could never fathom the relation existing between the colonel and his housekeeper. Usually it seemed to her the many years of mutual confidence had welded them together inseparably. Then came times when they studiously avoided each other, the colonel in haughty preoccupation with his own affairs, Miss von Schwertfeger squinting sarcastically and suggesting by her manner a feeling of rancor, a menace.
Now and then it even occurred to Lilly that when the lady had been young and fair, she had been the colonel's love. But Lilly dismissed this idea. Miss von Schwertfeger was far too proud to endure the bitterness of such companionship, andhewas too dominating to tolerate the presence of such a creditor.
All that Lilly learned of her past was that she was the daughter of a poor yet aristocratic army officer, and had been left an orphan with her own living to earn after her confirmation. She had now been managing the colonel's household for nearly twenty years. The fact that Miss von Schwertfeger, homeless and without resources, like herself, had also been thrown upon the colonel's tender mercies gradually aroused in Lilly a sense of sympathy and kinship, although she could never cast off a slight feeling that she must be on her guard against this woman.
She really owed Miss von Schwertfeger a debt of gratitude. Without her ready advice, Lilly would have fallen innumerable times from the road leading to the lofty heights where she would sit enthroned as aristocrat and lady of a manor. Ridiculers would have taken base advantage of her modesty; her sportive manner of equality would have invited impertinence; she would have ended in losing every vestige of power. Perhaps people would even have come to despise her.
As it was, everybody loved her. She found shining glances to greet her in the kitchen, in the stables, among the villagers, and at the lodge; while in the barn, where the Polish women dwelt behind smouldering brushwood and drying wash, she was a veritable idol.
Whether a rumor had gotten about of her Slavic name, or her Catholicism, could not be determined. However that might be, the fact remained that these strange, despised people, who glided among the stiff and haughty Germans with the humble look of a child in their eyes and the plaintive melodies of their country on their lips, revered Lilly as their redeemer and patron saint.
She liked to busy herself with the gentle, good-natured folk. She visited the sick, and cared for the destitute. The girls seemed to her like poor sisters, who needed watching over; and as for the boys, why, they were a charge that God Himself had put into her keeping.
Miss von Schwertfeger looked askance at these kindly attentions. "The people belonging to the place," she said, "are beginning to complain that you prefer the immigrants to them. You would do well to take your walks in another direction."
Lilly remonstrated. Henceforth Miss von Schwertfeger kept close watch, and did not leave her side when the barn dwellings happened to be in seductive proximity.
Miss von Schwertfeger even converted Lilly to Protestantism.
Not in her soul. Heaven forefend!
"Love your Holy Virgin and your St. Joseph as much as you want to," she said, "but just remove that font and those little images from your bedside. As for going to church, you may drive to Krammen to attend mass on Sunday; of course you may; the colonel would not think of forbidding you to. But take my advice, dearest, and sit next to us in our pew. Do it for my sake, you won't regret it."
Lilly did not offer much resistance, and by way of reward received a small altar to keep in her room. When locked, it looked like a dainty jewel casket, but inside was the infant Jesus in the arms of the Madonna and—oh joy!—there was St. Joseph on the left leaf of the folding door, and St. Anne on the right leaf.
Lilly wept with delight.
Nevertheless she could not love the donor with all her heart and all her soul. No matter how often they sat together chatting confidentially, Lilly remained in solitude.
And in fear.
She did not dare even to eat her fill. As if to make up for Mrs. Asmussen's long-forgotten mush, Lilly had developed a ravenous appetite; but noticing Miss von Schwertfeger's apprehensive sidelooks at her heaped plate, she usually rose from table only half satisfied. To stay herself until the next meal she drew upon the treasures of the storeroom.
Old Maggie the cook, in whom she possessed a sworn ally, kept watch to warn Lilly of Miss von Schwertfeger's approach. Once, however, the omnipotent housekeeper caught her there, and Lilly dished up the excuse that she wanted to learn housekeeping; which declaration was received with condescending merriment.
Had it not been for old Maggie, Lilly would never have learned a single detail of the management of the large household, Miss von Schwertfeger studiously keeping her from regular activity of any sort, whether out of vainglory or consideration Lilly could not determine.
If Lilly wanted to help with a piece of work, it was done already, or she mustn't spoil her hands, or she might injure herself.
Her passionate desire to learn horseback riding was also thwarted by Miss von Schwertfeger, who was always discovering signs of approaching motherhood, though they proved each time to be false.
Even playing on the piano was denied her. The yellow old instrument of torture, the keys of which resembled the decayed teeth of a smoker—just like the colonel's—was not to be replaced by a new piano until autumn, when they would go to Danzig to select one.
She thought of the times preceding her marriage, hardly more than half a year ago, as belonging to her long-vanished youth. She would have ridiculed one who had told her, youth still lay ahead of her nineteen years.
It was good that over there in the lodge a witness of her sweet, foolish past was living along in madcap thoughtlessness. This alone persuaded her that her maiden days had not been a mere dream, that she had not been a colonel's wife from the cradle upward.
In all this time she had met her merry friend only at Sunday dinners, when he played a comic rôle making his jerky reverences in his long frock coat.
Sometimes when standing on her balcony at twilight behind the foliage now closegrown, she saw him at his window in the lodge cutting capers with his wild little red fox of a dog. A feeling would then come over her that the only person who actually belonged to her in this alien world was yon light-haired good-for-nothing, who pursued all the maids on the demesne. Old Maggie told tales. At night he would ruin the toughest horses trying to get back from his secret excursions before dawn; and in his den behind closed shutters—
At this point Maggie lost her faculty of speech. The things that took place behind those closed shutters must have been dreadful.
One red August morning Lilly, sprinkled with dew from head to foot and clasping a bunch of dewy roses in both arms, entered the dining-room, where Anna von Schwertfeger, tall and thin in her greyish blue linen dress, was standing at the table smiling to herself.
It was not her manner, it was not her greeting; both were as usual. It was an intangible something which instantly caused Lilly to realize that an extraordinary event had occurred.
Katie, she noticed, who helped Ferdinand with the serving, had red eyelids and kept gnawing her lips while setting the table. Katie was of finer material than the average servant girl, her father having been a teacher, and was very pretty besides; owing to which qualities Miss von Schwertfeger had selected her as Lilly's special maid.
When Katie left the room, Lilly began to ask questions.
In reply Miss von Schwertfeger merely kissed her with redoubled tenderness, and observed:
"Why should you sully your pure young spirit with such ugly things? If certain people are bent upon breaking their necks, that's their business. We cannot help them."
"Breaking their necks—that must mean Walter von Prell," thought Lilly, and said aloud: "After all this is my home, and nothing that happens here in my future province"—she modestly said "future"—"ought to be kept from me."
Miss von Schwertfeger yielded to her arguments.
"It will be painful to you," she said, "because I know you like him."
"Him—whom?" queried Lilly, conscious of blushing.
"In fact all of us like him," continued Miss von Schwertfeger by way of mitigation, "the colonel most of all. So long as he confined himself to the rooms of the labourers' girls I winked my eyes, and begged the kitchen help not to annoy me with gossip about his adventures. But if he commits the outrage of breaking into the castle, it's time the matter ended."
"Why, what did he do?" asked Lilly, in fright.
"For some weeks past I noticed certain things which struck me as rather curious. In spots the vine on your balcony was withered—"
"On—my—" Seized with a wild suspicion Lilly stepped a pace nearer to Miss von Schwertfeger, and clutching her arm asked: "What has my balcony to do with Mr. von Prell, Miss Anna?"
Miss von Schwertfeger avoided Lilly's look.
"Calm yourself, my dear," she said, "calm yourself. Persons in my position have to keep their eyes wide open. That's what they are there for. I was simply acting for your protection, because anyone who does not know you as I do might come to the vile conclusion that if a man climbs up to your balcony—"
Lilly began to cry.
"It's so low, so low."
Miss von Schwertfeger drew her to the sofa and stroked her brow.
"I have gone through much worse things, dear child. At any rate, I wanted to get at the bottom of the affair, and although, I need not say, I hadn't the least suspicion of you"—she turned her eyes away again—"nevertheless I spent a few nights outside your door."
Lilly started. While she had been sleeping in innocent unconsciousness, someone had lurked in hiding close by—so fast was she held captive!
"And about one o'clock this morning I caught him in the act. Fancy! The dare-devil had the temerity to lean one of Haberland's ladders against your balcony—that was the cause of the broken, withered vines—and enter your sitting room through the glass door—glass doors, dearie, ought never be left open. He passed your bedroom, and went to the corridor without seeing me, of course. Since Katie is the only person who sleeps on that side I charged her with it early this morning. She made no denials. I always act in such matters with the utmost mildness and reserve, and I told her she might give notice and leave on the first. But what shall we do about the young man? I know this is the one place where he can be brought to turn over a new leaf. Should the colonel dismiss him, all's over with him. And I have no right to conceal his conduct from the colonel. An affair that so nearly compromises his wife's honour—"
"What has my honour to do with Mr. von Prell if he runs after servant girls?" Lilly ventured to interject, hoping to improve his prospects a bit by playing the innocent.
Miss von Schwertfeger had just time enough to enlighten her innocence concerning all the evil results of Mr. von Prell's mad conduct, when the table began to quiver from the colonel's tread as he came tramping down the corridor.
"Don't say anything—not yet!" begged Lilly, and with that was hanging on the colonel's neck to hide her confusion.
The colonel noticed nothing amiss.
His suspicions, ever alert, had gone to sleep now that he knew his young wife secure under the Argus eyes of his old and tried housekeeper.
He was no longer that greedy lover, simulating youthfulness, who had spied upon her every look and emotion, jealous of his mastery. The humourous condescension with which he watched the doings of the lovely gentle child gave him a natural semblance of fatherliness, which became him well.
His visits to the club house in the garrison town nearby, at first only occasional, had begun to grow more frequent. Sometimes he even departed from his custom of leaving after supper, and took the afternoon train. But whatever time he left, he never returned before two o'clock in the morning, since there was no train to bring him back earlier.
During breakfast he good-humouredly explained to the ladies that he would have to go to town that day to unload the barley crop on the Jews.
An idea occurred to Lilly which filled her soul with sacred joy. The colonel's absence must be employed for rescuing Von Prell. How, she did not yet know, but save him she must. She was the only one to do it. If she did not concern herself in his behalf, who else was there in the wide world to tow his drifting vessel to security?
After the colonel had left the room, she plucked up the courage to put in a plea with Miss von Schwertfeger, who, however, refused to relent.
"On the next occasion he will do even worse things," she said. "Then the shame both for him and for us will be still greater."
"No, he won't do anything worse," Lilly averred. "He will get better. You need only take him to task."
"I'm old enough to," replied Miss von Schwertfeger, with a bitter-sweet smile, "and I possess the authority. But, to be quite frank, the subject is rather a delicate one, and I should like nevermore to have a thing to do with such sordid affairs."
The extinct eyes, over which the lids lay like heavy blankets, fell into a fixed stare, which Lilly had frequently noticed. It seemed to bring to the top an old, dark, bitter hatred which had long lain buried. Then Miss von Schwertfeger herself returned to the subject.
"All I can agree to," she said, "is, that if he comes to me of his own will and begs my pardon, maybe I will yield. That's all I can do without incurring the blame of being underhanded."
"Why, he doesn't even suspect he's been discovered."
"I should like to wager," rejoined Miss von Schwertfeger, "that Katie will use her first free moment to run over to him."
"And if she doesn't?" cried Lilly, scarcely mastering her anxiety.
Miss von Schwertfeger took her head between her hands.
"If I did not know, dearie, what a sweet, harmless young creature you are, I should say your interest in the little rake is most curious. Now, you needn't blush. I know there's nothing back of it. At all events, I will wait until to-morrow, because you plead for him, my love."
Thus the conversation ended. Nothing more was to be expected of Miss von Schwertfeger.
"If I don't save him, he will be driven away, and if he's driven away, he'll go to rack and ruin, and if he goes to rack and ruin, I shall be to blame."
In this fashion Lilly's thoughts kept revolving dizzily in her brain.
The simplest thing would be to come to an understanding with Katie, but that was unbefitting Lilly's station. Besides, it had not occurred to the poor girl, who crept about apathetically, to run over to see Von Prell. Later in the day, in fact, she got an attack of cramps and had to be put to bed.
At four o'clock the colonel drove off to the station. He had stuck a package of blue banknotes into his bill-folder; which was an unfailing sign that he would not return before early morning.
Evening came. The lowing of the cattle and the cracking of whips proclaimed the end of the day's work.
Lilly crouched behind the vine on her balcony, and listened to what was going on at the lodge. Finally the scapegrace appeared at his dormer window dragging his little dog by a chain. He was wearing the sort of greenish grey jacket with innumerable pockets that managers of estates affect; and each pocket was stuffed full, giving his figure a warty appearance. Nevertheless he was a dear, bright little fellow, well worth the saving.
If she were to signal to him and throw down a piece of paper, would it be possible for him to pick it up later without being seen?
She went into her room and scrawled a few lines in pencil.
"Everything has been discovered. Miss von Schwertfeger promises to keep silent provided you—"
She stopped short. Should the note fall into strange hands the stupidest mortal would construe them into a confession of guilt.
"I will speak to him," she decided.
The supper bell rang.
How strangely Miss von Schwertfeger regarded her, as if she had gotten a glimpse into the depths of Lilly's soul and discovered her bold design. But she did not refer to the malefactor again.
On rising from the table she put her arm through Lilly's, after her wont when she intended to bar the way to Lilly's Polish friends.
"She won't let go the whole evening," thought Lilly, raging inwardly.
In a short while, however, word was brought that Katie had grown sicker, and it might be necessary to send for the physician.
"I'll be back directly," said Miss von Schwertfeger, as she left the room giving Lilly a look expressive of stubborn resistance.
In an instant Lilly had slipped out of the door and was running down the terrace steps leading to the park.
Profound silence reigned. The only sound was of a splashing which came from behind a cypress tree where old Haberland, still occupied with watering the roses, was filling his cans.
Lilly made straight for the lodge considering ways of making him look from his window and see her.
She was saved from committing this indiscretion.
He was lying at full length on the green bench outside the house, smoking a cigarette with evident gusto, the dog's chain wrapped about his left wrist, and the dog himself asleep at his feet. None of the other men were about.
Her heart's throbbing almost deprived her of breath.
"Mr. von Prell!"
He jumped to his feet, the dog along with him.
"Mr. von Prell, I should like to speak with you."
He put his hand to his head to remove his cap, but no cap was there.
"I am at my lady's service."
"Will you accompany me a little way?"
"At my lady's service."
He threw away the stump of his cigarette, glanced about hastily for his vanished cap, then walked at her side bare-headed, stiff as a puppet in his extravagant respect.
Lilly led the way into the interior of the park, where the clusters of trees and the open grassy spaces melted into purple-edged darkness. She had gotten back her calm. The desire to save him gave her strength of which she had not deemed herself capable.
"You must not misunderstand my coming to you," she began.
"Certainly not, my lady," he replied, bowing obsequiously. "The evening is so lovely, and old acquaintances like to chat with each other once in a while."
"If I had wanted anything like that," said Lilly, making no effort to conceal her sense of insult, "I should have invited you to the castle. If I come to you instead, you can readily imagine the matter is more important."
"What can be more important to me than strolling here at my lady's side?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh, Mr. von Prell, if you knew the difficulty you were in, you would take care not to indulge in such talk."
Lilly had never thought herself capable of so much haughtiness.
"What difficulty can I be in, my lady?" he rejoined, raising his brows and wrinkling his forehead. "My soul has worn half-mourning ever since I was condemned to live in a certain close distance from, or, rather, a certain distant proximity to—my gracious lady. Whether Tommy and myself possess the character for enduring this trial—come, come Tommy, don't be a goose. Our lady benefactress will have no objections to your not treading on her train."
Tommy obstinately planted his forelegs and had to be dragged along like a lifeless toy.
"You'll strangle the poor little beast," said Lilly, happy to have found a way of avoiding his personalities.
"He will simply be sharing the sensations of his master," said Von Prell, illustrating his reply by clutching at his throat and emitting a horrible gurgle.
Such behaviour must no longer be permitted. Lilly owed it to herself and her position to resent it.
"Mr. von Prell," she said very condescendingly, "do you realize that by the same time to-morrow you will probably have been dismissed?"
He was touched at last. He frowned and bit the ends of his moustache; but then he said:
"What gives me some satisfaction in the fact is that my lady seems to take no slight interest in the matter."
Now she became angry in earnest.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. von Prell," she cried. "I wear myself out and take great risks trying to help you, and you show your gratitude by making silly remarks all the time."
"Courage, Tommy," he said, taking the dog in his arms. "First they flay us, then they kick us out. Our one comfort is, we are innocent sufferers. Poor, poor Tommy."
"Don't try to whitewash yourself," Lilly reprimanded. "Miss von Schwertfeger discovered everything—your relations—you understand—your nightly trips to my balcony and through my room—everything. Do you think I take pleasure in having to treat you like a criminal when I've always thought so much of you? Don't you think I'd much rather be proud of you, than stand here and see you driven away like a stray dog? Or can you say anything in justification of yourself? Can you? Tell me."
She talked herself into such warmth that she forgot the unseemliness of her being there with him. She was now that which she wanted to be—the benevolent chatelaine, who turns everything to good account; and her breast swelled with the consciousness of her lofty ethical undertaking.
They had stepped from under the dark arches of the linden walk. A few sharply defined streaks of red still coloured the west, and cast a deep glow over his narrow, freckled face.
He looked completely crushed and penitent, and Lilly regretted having dealt with him so harshly.
"I realise," he began after a short pause, his voice quivering as with suppressed excitement, "I realise I must not let so grave a charge go without justifying myself. And I can justify myself, I most undoubtedly can. But in doing so, I am compelled to disclose a secret, which—I really do not know if I ought to initiate you into the horrible mysteries that threaten to ruin my life."
"What are they?" queried Lilly, in terrified curiosity.
"Well, then, from my boyhood up I have been pursued by an awful fate, which comes upon me when I am utterly defenceless and imposes upon me responsibility for misdeeds of which I am absolutely innocent, and places me in breakneck situations, which—I will be outspoken—I am—well, I am a somnambulist."
The merry little devils frolicked between his silvery lids, and Lilly, in spite of herself, burst out laughing. He joined in with his dear, mute tehee, which shook him like a storm; and they stood there laughing till they wearied. Lilly no longer thought of her chatelaine's dignity, or her ethical mission.
As if by mutual agreement they turned into the deserted depths of the park, which bordered on a bosky beech grove with neither fence nor hedge between.
It grew darker at each step.
Tommy resigning himself to his fate trotted behind his master obediently.
"Well," said Von Prell, after they had recovered from their laugh, "why should I try to throw dust in your eyes? I am a poor pickerel floundering here on dry land. Have you the faintest notion of what it means to keep company with three plebeians and lead a useful vegetable existence, and from morning till evening steadfastly practise dutifulness and uprightness? It's more than a fellow can stomach. I tell you, it's enough to drive him to a dose of castor oil. Tommy self-denyingly helps me tide over the worst moments, but every now and then he, too, is a disappointment to me. Will my lady permit me to use this occasion for asking her an extremely important question?"
Pleased at his having grown serious, Lilly assented.
"Can you—can you wag your ears?"
She succumbed to another paroxysm of laughter as to a spell of sickness, leaning against a tree and panting for breath, while he continued with profound affliction in his voice:
"I am master of the modest art and have been proud to exercise my skill ever since I was at high school, where it was considered the acme of human accomplishments. I made up my mind to train Tommy to do the same trick, and I spent many an hour over him in difficult intellectual effort, but without result. One day, however, I discovered he could wag his ears much better than I can, and, I assume, always had been able to. Only he did it when he wanted to, not when I wanted him to. Isn't that distressing? Doesn't it reflect the general aimlessness of human endeavour? O dearest baronissima, I am afraid I shall soon become a great philosopher out of sheer boredom."