I thought to myself: 'She's gasping just like yourself, yet she doesn't need it.'"

"Would you like to go there very, very much?" Lilly ventured to ask.

"Ask a man on fire whether he would like to take a cold plunge."

"And it's the only thing that would save your life?"

He looked her up and down a moment with a black, morose gaze.

"Why are you questioning me? What do you want to find out? Tell the young ladies of your cla.s.s that I'm very grateful to them, tell them I'm touched by their sympathy, I--"

An attack of coughing choked him. Lilly jumped up and looked about for help. She instinctively seized a gla.s.s from the folding-table, which was half filled with a pale liquid, and held it to his mouth. He groped for it eagerly. After drinking he fell back exhausted, and looked at her gratefully, tenderly. She returned his look with a feeble smile, thinking only one thought:

"What happiness to be here!"

It was so quiet in the dark, overheated room that she could hear the ticking of his watch, which hung on the wall not far away. He wanted to sit up and speak, but he seemed not to have recovered sufficient strength. Lilly gave him an imploring look of warning. He smiled and leaned back again. So they sat in silence.

"What happiness!" thought Lilly. "What great, great happiness!"

Then he stretched out his hands to her wearily. She took them in an eager grasp of both her own. They felt hot and clammy, and his pulse beat down to his finger-tips. It went twice as fast as hers, for she could feel hers, too.

"Listen, child, sweet," he whispered. "I want to give you a piece of good advice to carry away with you. You have too much love in you. All three kinds: love of the heart, love of the senses, love springing from pity. One of them everybody must have if he's not to be a fossil. Two are dangerous. All three lead to ruin. Be on guard against your own love. Don't squander it. That's my advice, the advice of one on whom you cannot squander it, for I can use it--G.o.d knows how well I can use it!"

"Have you n.o.body to stay with you?" she asked, dreading to hear that some other woman had the right to nurse him.

He shook his head.

"May I come again?"

He started, struck by the ardour with which she asked the question.

"If the cla.s.s sends you again, of course."

Lilly cast aside all reserve.

"That was a lie," she stammered. "Not a soul knows I came here."

He sprang to his feet, almost like a man in good health. His face lengthened, his eyes filled with tears. He stretched out his hands, which were trembling violently, as if to ward her off.

"Go," he whispered. "Go!"

Lilly did not stir.

"If you don't go," he went on, excitement almost stifling his words, "you will ruin your future. Young ladies do not visit unmarried men who live the way I do--even if the man is their teacher and sick as I am.

Tell no one that you have been here, no friend, not a single human being. Your livelihood depends upon your reputation. I cannot steal your bread. _Please go._"

"May I never come again?" Her eyes pled with him.

"No!!" he shouted in a voice like riven iron.

Lilly felt herself being shoved through the doorway. The key was turned in the lock behind her.

She disobeyed his injunction that very hour. She ran to Rosalie Katz, her friend _du jour_, to confess everything and relieve her feelings in tears. The little brown Jewess had a soft heart and was also head over heels in love with her teacher, and so the girls wept together.

But they had forgotten to lock the door, and thus it happened that Mr.

Katz, whose wealth and social position found pictorial expression in a round paunch, and whose waistcoat b.u.t.tons consequently were always coming loose, entered his daughter's room to have one sewed on.

When he discovered the girls in tearful embrace, he discreetly retired.

But the instant Lilly had left the house, he extracted all the completer a confession from his daughter. He learned the story of the sick teacher, the abortive committee meetings, and the futile meringues glaces.

"Well, we can fix that," he said with a smirk, twirling the very thin watch chain--heavy watch chains were worn only by those among the grain merchants who had remained below on the social scale--which branched out to the right and to the left from the third b.u.t.tonhole of his waistcoat.

A week later Dr. Malzer received a registered letter from two strangers informing him that means had been found to enable him to make a lengthy sojourn in the south. All he needed to do was obtain leave of absence and draw the first payment at the office of Goldbaum, Katz & Co.

He departed on a cold, crisp October evening. The faculty accompanied him to the station. Lilly and Rosalie, who had learned the time of his leaving at papa Katz's office, also were present, but they kept themselves in the background.

He glided past them m.u.f.fled in a thick scarf, his fiery eyes turned upon the distance.

When the train left, the two girls flung themselves into each other's arms and wept for love and pride.

On their way home Rosalie invited her friend to have an eclair with her, for it had grown too cold for meringues glaces.

Half an hour later they were sitting in the confectionery shop smiling at each other and looking at the pictures in the ill.u.s.trated papers.

CHAPTER IV

With the advent of spring a new and gayer existence began for Mrs.

Czepanek.

He was soon coming, that was certain. But even if the time was short, why spend it over that disgusting sewing? There was a less wearing way of making a living.

The thing was simple enough--rent an apartment of nine rooms, buy the furniture on credit, and have a plate hung on the outside of the house inscribed: "Board and Lodging for Students." As for the rest, well, a way would be found.

This little set of thoughts took exclusive possession of Mrs. Czepanek's poor brain, riddled like a sieve by the incessant whirr of the sewing-machine.

Though such a careless existence appealed to Lilly's fancy, she harboured some small doubts. In the first place the clamouring, threatening duns that had besieged their home after papa's departure were still fresh in her shuddering memory. Then she did not see quite clearly where so many students, enough to fill a nine-room apartment, were suddenly to come from after the beginning of the summer semester, since all had secured quarters already.

But her mother would listen to no objections.

"I will go to the directors, I will go to the mayor, I will--" and the attic room resounded with the new triumphant, "I will--"

Now began a series of mysterious expeditions. Frequently, when Lilly returned from school, she could tell at the bottom of the stairs that the machine, whose industrious clatter had greeted her for years, was at a standstill, and she would find the key to the room under the door-mat.