There was something else that gave her qualms. Although he had promised to, he had never fulfilled the wish she had expressed to see his factory.

However, he spoke openly of his mother, and did not shrink from confessing how greatly she had influenced him, though Lilly could read into his words that he wished for more freedom to develop his powers.

When his father had died twelve years before, he had been a minor, and had had to yield to his mother's guidance. The old lady continued to maintain her authority. Dehnicke discussed each undertaking with her, and if she approved, it was executed, even if he did not concur.

Lilly felt a dull terror arise within her of that old lady who sat commandingly in her arm-chair behind those respectable porcelain flower pots, and directed the conduct of so powerful a man as Lilly's benefactor.

Her heart would contract when she imagined her first meeting with the old lady.

Before Christmas Lilly had more work to do. Two dozen transparencies had been ordered and had to be completed before the holidays. 24x30=720.

Well, she could see ahead again.

For the first time in four years she forgot to send her mother a Christmas gift. To compensate, she made a particularly "poetic" lamp shade and had it delivered anonymously to Mr. Dehnicke's mother the day before Christmas. She herself did not know why she did this. Perhaps it was a sort of propitiatory offering, such as timid souls were wont to sacrifice to unknown G.o.ds as an expiation for unknown sins.

Counting upon her friend's coming, though by no means certain he would, she had made a little heap of her gifts for him, and at the fall of dusk with throbbing heart began to listen for the ring of the door bell.

Her fears were idle. At half past five he appeared loaded with parcels.

He had displayed tact in his choice of the simple presents--things she still needed in the apartment, a few embroidered collars, a boa, because she had to be careful of her sables, and a few little pieces from his factory to adorn the empty top of her secretaire. At each of her exclamations of delight he protested mildly. The things really came from Walter, as she knew.

"And what comes from you?" she asked.

"Nothing," he replied, turning his palms upward.

"I know of something you could give me that Walter has nothing to do with."

"What's that?"

"Show me your factory."

This time he did not evade her request. A date was immediately set--the first workday after New Year, when everything would be in running order again.

Then Mr. Dehnicke added with an embarra.s.sed air:

"But please wear something dark and simple."

"Why?" asked Lilly, frightened. "Do I usually dress conspicuously?" She felt as if some one had boxed her ears.

"Oh, not that. But your good clothes might be soiled."

On January the second at about noon Lilly stood in front of the house in Alte Jakobstra.s.se, which she had not seen since she had paid Mr.

Dehnicke that memorable first visit in his office.

"It has almost turned out to be a path of destiny after all," she thought, and looked up furtively at the porcelain flower pots in the second story windows. She started. It seemed to her a white head had moved behind the lace curtains.

"That smacks of a guilty conscience," she thought, and with awed, sidelong glances walked past the door that opened upon the broad, laurel-lined staircase which her unworthy feet might never tread until she had been received into the circle of bourgeois virtue.

But the carriage gate stood hospitably open. The scaffolding had been removed, and the imitation marble of walls and columns shone challengingly in their variegated colours. The magnificence of the courtyard beyond oppressed her heart again.

The office building had also undergone changes. The dun-coloured plaster had given place to a broad sandstone facade adorned by the busts of eminent artists; and gilded railings gleamed where once the sorry-looking iron staircase had been.

There was her friend hurrying down the steps to meet her.

Despite the stinging cold he wore no hat. In holding out his hand to her he cast a furtive look of scrutiny at all the windows. It seemed he, too, had a guilty conscience.

He first led her to the sample room. Its brand-new magnificence exceeded her boldest expectations. Columned halls with coffered ceilings stretched out in a long vista as in a museum. There were endless rows of tables and cases, on which, gleaming with gold and silver lights, sparkling with crystal prisms, glowing with the hot red of copper, or shading off softly into the light green of the patina, stood thousands of works of German art and industry, "imitation bronzes," destined to fill the show windows of shops and carry the semblance of display-loving prosperity into the huts of the poor.

There were corpulent begging friars, dancing gypsy girls clad in boleros, ogling dandies, postillions blowing horns, pecking chickens, dogs fetching game, calenders set in horse-shoe frames, cigar clips in the shape of little champagne bottles; tall pelicans holding lamps in their bills; figurines of men and women stretching up their arms, just as in Mr. Kellermann's studio, though here not aimlessly, since they bore aloft vases, candelabra and bowls. There were arbours screening love couples, with red electric bulbs hidden in the foliage; brownies beside shining mushrooms, sea sh.e.l.ls to serve as ash trays, snakes writhing about the chalices of flowers, or about porcelain eggs, or copper dice. The whole pitifulness of a vulgar sense of art seemed to have crept into this glittering conglomeration and been concentrated there ready to scatter to all quarters of the globe.

When Lilly gave her friend a questioning or astonished look because of some monstrosity, he shrugged his shoulders and observed:

"That's what the people want."

Despite some dissatisfaction with what she saw Lilly could have walked up and down for hours amid all that sparkle. She felt she belonged there by right. Had she been asked for her opinion she would have said without a moment's reflection: "Throw this away, and this, and this." But n.o.body appealed to her judgment, and everything went its way without her.

Mr. Dehnicke then took her to the factory.

Unfortunately the foundry, in which the basic part of all the work is done, happened just then to be closed. Through an open window Lilly saw the black gaping depths of the hearths, about which dirty troughs were standing, and over all, over chimney-hoods and vessels, a thick layer of ashes.

They descended a flight of dirty steps and pa.s.sed through damp rooms smelling of all sorts of poisons, where rows of mighty vats stood filled with vile fluids, and elderly men bustled about, who looked like sombre scholars, whereas they were nothing more than mere labourers. At Lilly's entrance they cast a look of surprise at her then concerned themselves about her no further. And they did not greet their employer.

"This is the galvanising room," explained Mr. Dehnicke, and continued as they walked past the vats, "The nickle bath, steel bath, silver bath, and so on."

Up in a loft surrounded by an iron netting, the wheels of a machine whirled, and vari-coloured electric bulbs glittered among them.

"That's where the electric current is generated which goes through the different baths."

Lilly did not understand, but she enjoyed the inconceivable rapidity with which the wheels span around and the buzzing sound they made.

In the room where the chasing was done many men stood at long tables industriously at work smoothing down the unevennesses of the cast metal, and preparing the separate parts of an ornament for joining. The joining was done in the next room, where the flames of the blowpipes darted and hissed and little clouds of metallic vapour shot sparks into the air. At each workman's place lay small heaps of burnished limbs, which made one feel sorry for the truncated body from which they seemed to have been severed.

In the next room the thinner parts were beaten into shape in iron dies.

It was here that the flowers and foliage were made, the ribbons and vines and arabesques, everything that curled and dangled daintily. The workingmen looked all the coa.r.s.er and unwieldier by contrast. They scarcely glanced up when Lilly and Mr. Dehnicke entered, and continued to hammer as if stupefied into dealing those blows.

Lilly had a keener eye for the appearance and bearing of the men than for the work they turned out. She made comparisons, decided who was well off and who in distress, who took pleasure in his work and who went through the day's toil doggedly, because driven to it by need. Each shop had its peculiar physiognomy. In one the majority looked fresh and agile, in another galled and weary.

And now, as often before when Mr. Dehnicke had spoken to her of his employes, a senseless desire arose in Lilly to watch over the fate of all these people, help where help was necessary, bring sunshine to the gloomy, and relief to the suffering. But she took good care not to acquaint Mr. Dehnicke with her absurd ideas.

"Now we will see the most delicate of all the operations," said Mr.

Dehnicke. "It is putting on the patina, which gives the pieces their real style."

He opened the door to the next shop, and the smell of a thousand poisons again a.s.sailed Lilly's nostrils.

Here there were women at work also, side by side with the men. They applied varnish and acids and brushed and rubbed. They looked sallow and jaded. At Lilly's entrance they were so taken aback that they dropped their brushes and cloths and stared at her in utter astonishment.

"One would have to begin with these to win the confidence of all," Lilly thought, and gave them a cordial nod.