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 her _particeps 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 ma.s.ses 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 a _grande dame's_ matter-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.

CHAPTER XV

They reached Lischnitz late Sat.u.r.day night. Since the colonel had prohibited a formal reception, all Lilly could see of the castle and outbuildings were black shadowy ma.s.ses, 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 bra.s.s rods draped in light blue ribbons, the bows of which perched there like great exotic b.u.t.terflies.

It was these b.u.t.terflies 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 s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.sage 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 k.n.o.b 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 secretaire inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tortoise sh.e.l.l, 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 gla.s.s. 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.