Lilly was holding a little porcelain bon-bon dish filled with fragrant, odd-looking confections. She glanced hesitatingly from one sister to the other without daring to offer them the sweets for fear of being repulsed with some abusive word or other. She set the lid--a little rose-wreathed Cupid--back on the delicately cut rim, let the dish sink down among the other gifts in one of the boxes, crawled to the corner where she slept, and cried bitterly.

The sisters whispered together a long time. They built a pyramid of the boxes on the counter and pa.s.sed by it at a respectful distance.

The next morning Lilly summoned a porter from the street and returned everything to the donor without a word of explanation.

Then she went to the sisters and said:

"I didn't tell you the truth yesterday. The gifts did _not_ come from papa. So I returned them."

The sisters, who had come toward her with a sweet-sour air of attentiveness, made no effort to conceal their disillusionment.

"Well, I didn't take her for such a m.u.f.f!" said the younger.

"She's not," said the older sarcastically, who, true to her nature, scented an _arriere pensee_. "On the contrary she's particularly calculating--wants to drive her adorer still madder. I hope she doesn't get stuck at her own game. Even the blindest mortal soon comes to know the difference between false and _genuine_ worth."

Therewith, in order to furnish on the spot an example of the genuine quality, she drew her petticoat tight about her legs with her left hand and with her right hand gathered her matinee close under her bosom, and sent Lilly a smile of utter contempt from over her shoulder, such a smile as only lofty souls can summon on occasion.

Nevertheless, Lilly noticed that from now on she was treated with a certain heedfulness, from which she deduced that something was still expected of her.

During the next few days nothing of importance occurred, though the day after Christmas a few of the young gentlemen had put in appearance again. Their manner was jerky as they exchanged their books, they outdid themselves in politeness and they showed no disposition to make themselves at home on chair or counter.

Then--the day before New Year--Lilly received this letter:

"Dear Miss Czepanek:--

You shamefully mistook the motives that led me to send you those Christmas gifts. I feel I must justify myself and bring about a perfect understanding between us. I have plans concerning you which I should like to set before you personally, but my position forbids my visiting you repeatedly, and I would ask you, if your future is dear to you, to come to my house to-morrow evening. I shall expect you some time before eight. I give you my word of honour for your safe return.

Yours,

Mertzbach."

To go or not to go.

That night Lilly did not sleep a wink.

If only the feeling of dread had not obsessed her, dread which robbed her of breath and the power to defend herself. If the mere thought of him brought it on, what would become of her should she stand before him face to face?

She finally decided not to go, while she knew for a certainty she _was_ going.

She lived through the day as in a dull dream.

In the afternoon she obtained permission from Mrs. Asmussen to attend New Year's eve service. The sisters, who spied upon her every movement, exchanged significant looks, but seemed too preoccupied with their own affairs to give hers their usual sweet attention.

Lilly donned the old felt hat which many a storm had buffeted and many a shower discoloured. Her winter coat made her look narrow shouldered, and tug as she would, the sleeves refused to reach her wrists.

If she had had her wits about her she would have been much too ashamed to show herself before so aristocratic a gentleman in that garb. But she was driven to her acts by something outside herself, not by her own volition. Strange, mysterious powers seemed to be pushing her, invisible hands to be helping her dress, smoothing her hair lower on her forehead, raising the arch of her brows, and opening the b.u.t.tons at her throat to give her constricted chest the freedom of its young fullness. They rubbed her cheeks, pale from lack of sleep, until they glowed with a triumphant red.

When she reached the street and the frosty breath of the winter evening stroked her gently, she felt she was waking up at last.

"Where are you going?" a voice within her asked.

"Perhaps to St. Joseph," she answered evasively.

But she did not go to St. Joseph. She made a wide detour about St.

Anne's, crossed the Altmarkt diagonally, saw the sisters sitting at Frangipani's in the company of two admirers, with difficulty avoided the a.s.siduities of a gallant, and suddenly found herself in front of the latticed gateway behind which, four flights up, the sewing machine had rattled and clattered the last remnant of reason out of her poor, ruined mother's head.

Light was shining from the two dormer windows up there where Lilly had once lived.

Some one else was probably sitting there now, sewing shirts and drawers and nightgowns, day and night, night and day. Lilly, too, would be sitting there some day, bitterly ruing her lost youth as one regrets an act of criminal folly.

"If your future is dear to you," he had written.

She faced about abruptly, and ran--ran--ran--without coming to a stop until she reached the lighted house, in front of which a sentinel was pacing and freezing as he kept guard over the highest dignitary in the city.

"Where are you going?" the voice within her asked again.

To avoid answering, she rushed up the wide carpeted stairway and came upon a lackey in silver-striped knickerbockers, who without question quietly relieved her of her umbrella, while the shadow of a mischievous smile flickered across his pudding face.

High white doors were held open for her, red-shaded lamps shone like great flowers, beautiful bare-shouldered women with tiaras in their hair smiled down on her from oval gilt frames.

It was so silent and warm in the s.p.a.cious rooms you could lie down on the soft carpet and go to sleep. If only there had not been that feeling of dread which was tightening about her throat and brow like a net drawn closer and closer.

Another door flew open. Beyond was green twilight, as in a thick forest, and from out of the twilight _his_ figure came toward her, broad, resplendent, clanking. She felt her hand being taken, felt herself being led into the green dusk. Bookcases towered before her like black walls.

From somewhere came the threatening glitter of swords, helmets and armour.

She did not dare look at him. Even after she had been seated in a tall, dark arm-chair, whose top hung over her head like a canopy, she had not given him a single glance.

She heard his voice, whose resounding roughness seemed to have been m.u.f.fled to vibrating organ tones.

It was all unearthly, all that she perceived and felt. It was not heaven, it was not h.e.l.l. It was a region of anxiety and dreams, where souls hovered between deprivation and fulfillment in a state of lethargy.

At last she understood his words. There was nothing unearthly about them. They dealt most rationally with the Christmas gifts, the return of which he did not consider final. They were securely stowed away biding the time when their mistress would graciously deign to receive them.

Lilly with a frozen smile on her lips merely shook her head. She could not summon the courage to voice a refusal.

"And now you will ask me, my dear," he began anew, "what impels me, a man advancing in years, to hang on to your skirts like a pertinacious lover."

At the words, "advancing in years," she looked up instinctively.

There he sat, too sharply illuminated by the light of the green student's lamp. The orders on his breast gave out a subdued, golden l.u.s.tre. The silver ta.s.sels of his epaulets quivered and glittered like little snakes. There was a shimmer upon and around him like the halo about a saint in gold and brocade.

Confused and abashed by all this glory Lilly quickly sank her gaze again.

"I went to you that time," he continued, "because a dispute had broken out among some of my younger men, of which you were the subject. The matter promised to take a dangerous turn and it had to be adjusted. I expected to find a pert, coquettish little shop girl, and I found--well, I found--_you_. Now you will ask what I mean by 'you,' because you yourself cannot possibly be aware of your good points, or, rather, your potentialities--everything in you is still in process of becoming. I am what they call a connoisseur in women, my child, and behind that which you are to-day, I see that which you will be some future day, _if_--this 'if' is the main thing--if the opportunity is afforded you for proper development. You might go to ruin among your old books. In case you have the courage to entrust your fate to my hands, I should like to a.s.sume the care of directing your life into fitting channels."

That sounded composed and paternal.

Lilly felt herself breathing easier, experienced a little relaxing hopefulness. She ventured to raise her look once more, and beyond the gold and silver dazzle she saw a pair of brilliant gla.s.sy eyes, which had lost their sharpness and were fairly forcing themselves on her with a mighty, greedy questioning. The shuddering and stiffening came upon her anew. She sat there motionless with paralysed will, while she thought:

"Of what avail? He will do whatever he wants with me at any rate."