He wrinkled his forehead lost in thought.

"Well--then--" He hesitated and chewed his words as people are wont to do when they dread their own bravery, "--then--it would be best if you--come and stay near--"

"Near--near what?"

"Oh, don't act that way. You know what I mean."

"I do, but I cannot believe it."

"What's so awful about it? I could look after you now and then--or talk over matters--different things."

"And show her to me so as to get my opinion and my blessing--eh?"

"Well and supposing it's so? The way we are to each other--the way we haven't done a thing for years without asking each other's advice, what's so monstrous about it?"

Lilly felt a patronising pity arise within her. She stroked his hands and said:

"Dear friend, I don't think I'd furnish the right sort of a.s.sistance to you in your courtship."

Her superior tone increased his ill-humour.

"Goodness gracious! 'a.s.sistance,' 'courtship!' You talk as if you were on the stage. Altogether you're so puffed up--so puffed up! Of course you simply want to revenge yourself on me by making me angry. I must say it's not at all n.o.ble of you at such a time."

She laughed and stretched herself. How low it all was! How ridiculous!

And how indifferent to her! After all did it concern her?

To be alone--alone with him! There was nothing else in the world beside that.

"Then you don't want to?"

She shook her head, "No."

"Very well."

He prepared to leave in anger, but lacked the strength.

"Lilly."

"Hm?"

"I'd like to avoid any misunderstandings. You seem to think I'm not in earnest this time."

"By no means, Richard. I wish you all possible happiness. But really, with the best of intentions, I can be of no service to you in this affair."

"Of service to me! Of service to me! Who's speaking of service to me?

Mama was quite right. If I break off this time, there won't be anything else for me any more. So make it quite clear to yourself. In a few weeks all's over between us."

"So much the better," she came near saying. But she saw the tears in the corners of his eyes, and refrained from hurting him.

Four years lived together lay behind them. He was too tightly tied to her ap.r.o.n strings. She felt she ought not to let him go without her advice and encouragement.

So she spoke to him as to a child. She said his mother was right, praised his project, and counted up all the reasons why it absolutely had to be. In order to calm him as to her own att.i.tude, she recalled how it had always been her ambition to let him feel his freedom and never stand in his way. She also a.s.sured him she would cherish friendly sentiments for him until the end of her days.

Finally, on parting, they both wept.

CHAPTER XVII

Now the way was clear. Now she might consecrate the new life and rejoice in it.

July came and scorched the deserted streets.

The denizens of the aristocratic west side who remained in town with no employer to drive them dreamed away idle days behind drawn shades, hovering between the couch and the bathtub.

Lilly did not awaken to real life until evening came, when the world endeavoured to throw off the heat it had absorbed during the day, when dusty yellow vapours rolled on the turbid water of the ca.n.a.l, and beyond the chestnuts, the leaves of which were already beginning to wither, the red glow of the heavens melted into one with the winking lights of the street lamps.

Then she strolled at Konrad's side in the blue twilight of the streets, always alert to escape the observation of acquaintances.

Staid middle-cla.s.s families promenaded to the beer gardens, love-couples met at the appointed street corners; and among them surged the ma.s.s of those whom life has left solitary with shy pa.s.sionate yearnings, and who hope to steal from smiling chance that for which they no longer dare implore sterner G.o.ds. Over the exhausted city hung a sultry haze of secret desire, in which formal restraint and genuine feeling flickered and went out, leaving no sign of ever having been.

How remote those days when Lilly herself wandered about in the same fashion, hoping for the intervention of fate, yet lacking the courage to compel it. And shuddering at dangers she had escaped, she clung closer to Konrad's protecting arm.

She and Konrad always managed to find a secluded nook where gypsy bands played their fiddles, or Tyrolese strummed their dulcimers, or the host himself, some musician come down in the world acted as orchestra leader.

In the ivy-hung corners between laurel trees planted in green painted tubs they had little fear of discovery.

Their intercourse had undergone a change.

There were still instructive discourses upon all sorts of subjects and Lilly intently hung upon Konrad's lips; but her holy ardour for knowledge had cooled down.

That G.o.d does not exist, that Fra Lippo Lippi had been a good-for-nothing, that baroque art has it good points, and that a line gone crazy ought to be sent to the madhouse, even if it poses as ultra-modern, these and many more novel, interesting things Lilly had long known. But they no longer evoked discussion.

Often their eyes would meet and linger with a soft yearning smile in them as if that were the most eloquent language in which they could talk to each other. And often Konrad's thoughts went their own way, returning to Lilly only under compulsion. She would then grow melancholy and jealous, and insist on leaving.

She would not feel thoroughly content until he lay comfortably in her arm, on her heart.

The walls were permeated with the day's heat; the curtains threatened suffocation; a veritable sirocco blew through the cracks of the shutters. But Lilly and Konrad suffered no discomfort. The glow accorded with their mood.

It was the greatest disaster for either of them to fall asleep, and thus shamefully curtail the time they spent together. So they agreed that the one who remained conscious longer should rouse the other.

Lilly was invariably the one to remain awake. Konrad was exhausted by his work, and in the morning he could not doze off again after a cup of tea in bed, or in the afternoon rest on the couch. And when he lay there next to her with twitching limbs, like a thoroughbred hunting dog, she felt much too sorry for him to keep her promise.

She would sit up in bed, and never weary of gazing at him in the dim light of the red-shaded candle.

There was always something in his face to study--the strong-willed fold between his brows, deeper than before and still somewhat intimidating; the muscles of his temples incessantly working; and the curling upper lip, the right end of which every now and then twitched as if he were smiling at her in his sleep. He had grown thin. His skin had lost its firmness, and on his cheeks lay shadows which darkened at his jaws.

There was a line of suffering about his nostrils. He looked like a young Christ, created just to be adored.