He gratefully caressed her shoulders.

"Understand me," he said. "I am not trying to force myself into your confidence. But if the relation between two human beings is what ours has been for the past hour, they want to mean everything in the world to each other. I have never met a woman like you. I am utterly helpless.

The few little experiences I have had don't count. In Rome a baker's daughter loved me. She ran away with a marquis. When I was a student I went through a few similar episodes. I never mingled much in society.

And now all of a sudden I have you in my arms--the n.o.blest, the most glorious thing I've ever beheld. A creature not of this world. I keep looking at you as you stand there in your blue peplum--why, it's as if an old marble statue by Lysippus or Praxiteles had come to life. And that is to be mine? The mere desiring of it is naked tragedy. We are both making straight for a precipice, and we don't even resist."

"Why resist?" she cried, in bliss, throwing her head back, as if to toss from her brow streaming bacchantic locks. "We love each other. Nothing else concerns us."

He sank into the chair next to her, and pressed his face into both hands, his body heaving as with sobs.

She kneeled before him, and bent her head, and planted little kisses on his clenched hands.

"No," he cried, jumping up. "I will not permit myself simply to drift.

If _you_ think as you do, you who are willing to sacrifice everything--very well! But I, who am the recipient, I must make everything clear to you, so that you know for whom you are making the sacrifice. I mustn't leave any possibilities open to mislead you. I'm nothing but a poor young fellow who lives by his uncle's bounty. I have no prospects. I can't build on my work. And the few articles I write don't count. I must first toil for my little place in the world. It may be ten years before I secure it. And I can't let you support me. Think what you will of me, but I must tell you: we cannot become husband and wife."

At first she scarcely comprehended. It was impossible for her to realise that a man could be so nave, so unworldly as to speak of marriage in Lilly Czepanek's drawing-room.

She burst into a strident laugh, the overflow of her scorn of her own worthless life.

"Do you think," she cried, jumping to her feet, "that I'm nothing but an adventuress who tries to rope men into marriage, one of those harpies"--Mrs. Jula's word occurred to her--"who pounce upon every pa.s.serby? For what sort of a sorry wretch do you take me?"

He looked into her face with astonished, uncomprehending eyes.

"A woman who loves a man and wants to be the joy of his life is not a sorry wretch."

Oh, if that was what he meant!

The time when in all innocence she had wanted to be Richard's wife recurred to her. How long ago was it? How low she must have sunk if this most natural conception of the relation between man and woman should have become strange to her!

She shuddered, and was aware of having turned pale.

If only he had noticed nothing amiss. She could stand much, but not that.

Humbly, in dread of his searching eyes, she replied:

"I merely wanted to let you know that you are free and will remain free from first to last. You can leave whenever you want to, and nothing will have been."

"And you?" he asked.

"What do you mean--I?"

"As what will you remain behind if I go?"

"I'll take care of that," she laughed.

The contingency was very, very remote. Why split her head over it now?

But he was not yet satisfied.

"There's something peculiar about you. A whiff of mystery. A--a--how shall I say? The shadow of a wrong done you. You mingle much in society, you say. Yet I have the feeling that you are lonely and perhaps unprotected. Whenever I try to look into you, I feel as if rude hands had been laid on you. From now on I will stand by to protect and advise you. But I'm so inexperienced in worldly matters. It can easily come about that without divining it I may merely add to the mischief in your life. And I would not for the world--you are holy to me. So you must tell me now, to-night, whatever you may of what you have gone through and suffered. Will you?"

Lilly felt evasion was no longer possible. The hour had struck of which she had lived in dread ever since she had met Dr. Rennschmidt, though it had seemed indefinitely remote.

One of Mrs. Jula's sayings again flashed through her mind:

"The road back into the community of virtue leads through lies."

It had begun with lies; with lies it would go on.

For an instant the wish shot up within her to tell him the full truth.

But that was madness, suicide. In fact, she need not lie. She need merely put a different face upon matters, the face they wore when hope still shone upon her life and she actually was what she now endeavoured to appear to be.

"It must be darker," she said, extinguishing the chandelier's piercing white glare. The only light now came from the red-shaded standing lamp, which cast a flowery shimmer upon them.

Her hands in his, her head leaning against his shoulder, she began her whispered, faltered confession.

She told of her sheltered, care-free childhood, in which music held sway, a benevolent spirit and a demon in one; of her father's flight and the poverty in which she and her mother were left.

So far nothing to conceal or alter. The colonel also remained as he had been, except that she occasionally promoted him to the rank of general.

It was not until Walter von Prell stepped on the stage the second time that it became necessary to mix in fresh colours. The mere acknowledgment that she had frivolously abandoned body and soul to a tattered and torn jovial ne'er-do-well would deprive her forever of her friend's esteem. So the sorry little good-for-nothing was quite naturally converted into a happy, yet ill-fated laughing hero who had been vanquished merely because all the dark powers combined against him.

Once launched, she sailed serenely on. She represented the parting as having taken place amid a thousand vows and tears and bridal expectations. As for the duel, of which she had never learned the particulars, she exaggerated its horrors vastly, her lover emerging a total cripple, who left for America resolved not to enter her life again until he should be in a position to atone for his misdeed by marrying her. So for the meantime he placed her in the care of a simple, good young man, who was all n.o.bility and self-sacrifice. For love of the vanished friend, this young man had taken Lilly's fate into his keeping four years before, and watched over her and led her into society. With rare disinterestedness he managed the little capital remaining from her married days, and always advised her in practical matters. He came every afternoon for a social cup of tea, and sometimes he escorted her when she went out in the evening. His circle had become hers, and everybody they knew honoured and respected the fine relationship existing between them, the basis of which was his n.o.ble loyalty to his friend.

So Lilly Czepanek, with the force of conviction, recounted her life history. She almost believed in her own words. As a matter of fact, it was a fair picture of her life, such as Richard had once portrayed it, before she had begun to slip into the abyss the night of the carnival.

Of Kellermann and Dr. Salmoni and the whole "crew," of course, she said nothing. But she alluded to her unfortunate art with tears--for the last time, she said--then it should never be mentioned again.

She concluded. When, with a hesitating feeling of security, she looked up to him expecting to receive his absolution, she started at the change in his appearance. His face was livid, his eyes, fastened on the ceiling, glowed unnaturally, deep furrows of anguish had cut themselves into his cheeks.

"Doesn't he believe me?" flashed through her head.

He jumped up, and s.n.a.t.c.hed Richard's picture from the secretaire, and carried it to the light of the standing lamp.

Lilly knew he was thinking of Walter, and timidly interjected:

"That isn't he."

"Then who is it?"

"His friend--the manufacturer."

He cast the picture aside.

"Haven't you a picture of _his_?"

Yes--but where was it? The large pastel was in the lumber room. The small one very likely was stowed away in some drawer.

"I packed it away," she excused herself, "because I couldn't bear to have it in my sight all the time."

She did not tell him why the sight of it annoyed her. She preferred him to a.s.sume the cause was her newly awakened love.