Richard reluctantly adapted himself to a less showy existence. He still wanted to parade his possession of Lilly; but little Mrs. Jula's homily had sunk deep into his conscience, and he did not dare to disobey her.

Nevertheless he was bored and vexed and sulky, and Lilly was on the point of herself suggesting that they go to the races, when she received news of her mother's death.

She shed the number of tears and suffered the amount of affliction befitting her tender heart. In reality her mother had been dead to her so long before that her grief could not be very profound.

Before leaving Berlin to attend the burial at the insane asylum, her greatest concern was to have as simple a mourning dress made as possible. She felt ashamed that she had provided so poorly for her sick mother during her lifetime, and she wished to avoid giving offence by elegance of appearance; which did not prevent the officials and physicians of the institution from dancing attendance on her and treating her as if she were a sort of shining black bird of paradise.

She spent three glowing spring evenings at the little heap of earth in prayer and meditation, and returned to Berlin in a serious frame of mind with thoughts stirred up like soil freshly turned by the plough.

When at her mother's grave she felt she hated Richard; but when she found him awaiting her at the station she sank into his arms helplessly, eager for consolation. Now he really was her all.

For the next few months it was taken for granted that her mourning stood in the way of pleasure seeking. Richard, it must be said to his credit, behaved sweetly and considerately. He sat at home with her many a night, read unintelligible books, played backgammon, and preferred falling asleep on the sofa to luring her into the world of gaiety.

But since it was not right that he should become entirely estranged from society, it was arranged that he was to have every other evening for himself.

His beautiful mistress's reputation had smoothed his path. Relying upon the support of two of her admirers, he ventured to apply for admission into one of the aristocratic clubs, which welcomed him without a single black ball. From now on he could enjoy the supreme delight of losing his firm's well-earned money to young scions of the aristocracy, foreign attachÉs, and other superior beings.

Lilly disliked hearing of his losses. She worried over his annoyance, which he invariably revealed. Whenever he told of his bad luck, she felt constrained, and then offered to make up by saving even more than she had heretofore. Though he laughed each time and assured her that what she cost him signified as little as if he were to indulge in one additional cigarette a day, she clung to her conviction that she was a parasite, and was partly responsible for the welfare of Liebert & Dehnicke.

When he spent a quiet evening with her resting from his nocturnal campaigns, they always "talked business." Lilly displayed a sharp sense for practical matters, even for accounts, and her artistic judgment was sure.

Richard very often brought home drawings of models, and the two sat bent over the outspread rolls planning and consulting with each other like partners.

Those were well-nigh blessed hours.

Lilly never wearied of inquiring about the factory; how many people were employed there at that particular time; whether this or that man or woman was still working for him—she did not know the names, but designated the people by an accurate description of their appearance—what pieces were in process of making; and whether the supply of articles of one or other model had not yet given out, so thoroughly informed she kept herself as to the firm's sales.

The factory, as she often jestingly remarked to Richard, was her unhappy love. To call for him at his office at closing time was her greatest delight, and had she been permitted to, she would have busied herself at the factory every day. But he objected. His employÉs knew of the close relationship between them, and he must avoid gossip and ridicule.

Lilly felt sure this was not the only motive. She had long fully realised that his mother was not kindly disposed to her. Though at first he had spoken of her quite freely, he now evaded a reply when Lilly directly asked for her. Probably he feared exciting the old lady's indignation if he permitted his mistress to make herself at home in his office.

So Lilly contented herself with sympathetic interest from afar in the welfare of the little kingdom.

On the evenings she was left alone, at a loss what to do with herself, she got into the habit of visiting the house in Alte Jakobstrasse.

She left a little before ten o'clock, and took up her station on the opposite side of the street, from where she gazed reverentially at the old grey structure. She admired the imitation marble columns, which formed a decorative frame about the entrance after the fashion of a Renaissance gateway. She stared up at the dimly lighted second story where his mother dwelt, and pressed timidly into the darkness of a doorway if she saw the threatening shadow of a woman's figure glide across the curtains.

When it grew late and the tenants of the house ceased to come and go, she ventured to cross the street, mount the three front-door steps, press her face against the iron grating, and peep into the hall. The sheen of the leafy pyramid, the subdued milky whiteness of the Clytie bust, the dark glow of the stained glass window mingled to produce the mysterious, alluring impression of a dusky chapel.

The front-door steps became like a goal of a pilgrimage up to which penitents crawl on their knees; the stained glass window became a heavenly aureole, the Clytie bust a benedictory saint.

Late in the summer Richard was called to the manoeuvres.

His letters were curt and reserved, and unsuccessfully concealed his ill humour. Finally they were dated from the hospital.

He had fallen from his horse and his left knee joint was inflamed. He would be unable to ride for a long time, perhaps forever.

He returned in October wearing a gutta percha knee cap, and promptly sent in his resignation from the regiment.

The fall from his horse in truth was a fortunate incident. Rumours of his relation with the divorced wife of its former commander had reached the regiment. The comrades noticeably held aloof from him, and evidently his chiefs were merely awaiting confirmation of the report to call him to account officially; a procedure which in the circumstances would have brought his lieutenancy in the reserves to a catastrophal end.

The accident was his salvation; and his object in adopting an irritated, reproachful manner in Lilly's presence was merely to make her aware of what he was sacrificing because of his love of her.

Indirectly he had heard news of the colonel which filled Lilly with horror. It had gradually become a fixed idea of the colonel's that Anna von Schwertfeger had acted in collusion with Lilly and Von Prell; and man of violence that he was, he had chased her from his castle. Since then he lived alone, a maddened misanthrope, and it was feared he would come to a sad end.

An ominous greeting from those sunny days of Lilly's past.

A few months later that occurred which Mrs. Jula had prophesied: one day Richard spoke to Lilly of marrying another woman, not, however, for the purpose of annoying her, but because he had formed the habit of disburdening himself of every vexation by talking it over with her.

His mother was entertaining an enormously wealthy orphan girl.

Of course for Richard—wholly and entirely for Richard.

She sat at table every day, a pale, strawy blond, and looked at him questioningly with great, strange eyes:

"Aren't you soon going to propose?"

His mother delivered long sermons. It could not go on the same way. A few more seasons like the last and all the respectable families would point the finger of scorn at him.

It was enough to drive him distracted.

Lilly felt as if glacial waters were trickling down her back.

But she bore up bravely. She smiled at him, and betrayed no more excitement than if he had been consulting her about some doubtful factory model.

"Do you feel you could get to love her?" she asked.

"What does 'to love' mean?" he rejoined, avoiding her gaze.

"Well, everything has to be taken into consideration."

"You talk just as if I were serious about it," he cried. "Altogether you act as if you didn't care, as if you would like to be rid of me in a twinkling."

With languid eagerness Lilly tried to assure him she did not wish to stand in his way, not in the least, least bit. She had only his happiness at heart, and if he cared to make her proud by showing confidence in her, he would not take this step, neither now nor later, without discussing it with her beforehand.

He was touched. He kissed her and said:

"Oh, it's nonsense."

But the conversation left Lilly as in a nightmare, and the one thought obsessed her:

"If he deserts me, I shall sink into the mire after all."

Grief over her mother's death was a vanishing cloud compared with this torturing anguish.

The vultures Mrs Jula had spoken of occurred to her, all those vultures with their white fronts and black dress suits, who were waiting to snatch her to themselves with their moneyed claws the instant her friend and protector abandoned her. From them her thoughts flitted to those other vultures in Kellermann's picture, who perched on the sunburnt rocks ready to pounce on the naked beauty when she should lose the strength to defend herself.

"Her chains are her weapons," thought Lilly. "And that's the way it is with me. If I am set free, I am lost."

The next day she and Richard carefully avoided the dangerous topic, though Richard remained distraught and uneasy.

Finally Lilly took courage, and though her feelings compressed her throat like a murderous clutch, she said:

"I see you haven't come to a decision yet, Richard. Wouldn't you like to bring me her picture, so that I can see what she is like? No one knows you so well as I do, and no one will know so well whether she suits you or not."

Richard violently denied that he was undecided. What did he care for that doll of a girl?

But his resentment was disingenuous, and his eyes stared into vacancy.

She had five millions.

And the next day he actually brought the photograph.

Lilly laid it down without unwrapping it. Mere contact with the picture made her hands tremble. She feared the first sight of the girl's face would expose her own great distress.

"Why, you're not even looking at it," said Richard, with some disappointment in his tone.

"Time enough after you've gone," said Lilly, rejoiced that she could smile so indifferently.

She called to him when he was out in the hall:

"I'll tell you to-morrow—you'll know then."

The next instant she caught up the picture. Her heart knocked at her ribs. But first she had to wave "good-by" to Richard, as was her habit and duty.

And then—and then—

A girl's face, good, placid, somewhat peaked, with poor, though amiable eyes. Her blond hair was plaited country fashion, and the heavy braids, thick as a woman's wrist, drew her head back a bit. A timid smile played about her full lips.

Something just to be loved, something which would revive with happiness as a spray of lilacs in fresh water. Not turbulent, none too gifted—wifely and yielding.

Just what Richard needed.

Lilly placed the picture on a chair and threw herself on her knees in front of it. She prayed and wrestled with her soul.

She had to reiterate again and again:

"Just what he needs. He won't have another such chance."

And the five millions!

If she were not to set him free she would be one of those harpies which Mrs. Jula said the world of respectability considered her and her like to be.

"But I am in possession, therefore mine is the right. What good are her five millions to me, if I go to ruin on account of them? Why need I sacrifice myself for him, for him or for anybody in the wide world?"

"Harpy, harpy!" rang in between.

So thought the vampires described in children's mythologies as having beautiful hair and murderous claws.

"I will tear to shreds the flesh of him whom I possess."

Oh, what a night!

She crouched in bed with her knees drawn up and her face buried in her lap, sobbing, sobbing.

At last, toward morning, she found what she had been seeking. Out of tears, out of bitterness, out of shuddering and prayer arose the alleviating resolve: that very afternoon when he came she would tell him—but no!—why wait until the afternoon? Why wait until he entered the rooms where the force of familiarity, his loving resistance might shiver the great sacrificial work to bits?

It must be in some other place where she seemed more of a stranger to him, which she could leave the instant she felt his proximity caused her to waver.

She was not allowed to visit him in his office without special permission. But at the midday recess, when it was quieter than at other times, he retired to his back room for his actual work of the day, and she might be sure of entering unseen and speaking to him without fear of interruption.

So sacred a resolve sanctioned everything.

She used the morning for assorting his letters and tying them together. She wanted to hand them to him along with his betrothed's picture when she bade him farewell. He need never fear she might cause him trouble in the future.

Then she dressed—more carefully than usual—washed herself with milk of lilacs to remove the traces of tears, waved her hair, and drew it into a knot at the nape of her neck, as she had seen on statues of Greek women. She was their equal—like them, serenely raised above sorrow and joy.

She drove to the office.

The clock struck quarter past one when she stood in front of the columned gateway.

Nobody was to be seen in the yard except the porter, who lifted his cap with a confidential smile.

She was still their employer's mistress.

If only she had taken the precaution to send in her card.

The front office door was open as usual when he worked in the back room, and she well knew the secret spring of the gate in the railing.

She prudently knocked at the inner door, which as a rule stood slightly ajar, but which to-day was closed.

"Come in," he said.

She stepped in and faced—his mother.

Lilly had never seen her, and she had imagined her quite, quite different, a tall, thin, imposing old lady. Next to Richard's desk sat a medium-sized, rotund woman with a black lace cap on her grizzled hair. She looked at Lilly with an expression of surprise and displeasure in her cold, grey eyes.

Lilly instantly knew it was she.

Richard, who had been leaning back comfortably in his revolving chair, jumped to his feet.

Rigid with fright, Lilly stared at the old lady, who now rose from her seat also, while an evil gleam of anger and contempt lighted up those cold eyes.

"A fine state of affairs," she cried, turning her head jerkily from Richard to Lilly and back to Richard. "I'm not secure even in my own home. I beg of you, Richard, do not expose me to another meeting with a person of this sort."

With an indignant snort she pushed past Lilly, who stood to one side in respectful terror.

"What are you doing here? What do you mean by coming here in this way?"

Richard had never shouted at her so before.

He planted himself squarely in front of her, thrust his hands in his trousers' pockets, and gnawed the ends of his moustache. His head hung on his left shoulder. He looked like a treacherous, butting bull.

She wanted to hand him the picture and the letters, tell him everything she had intended to; but her voice failed. Her knees threatened to give way.

"I—I—I—" she faltered, and choked.

"I—I—I—" he mimicked her. "I—I—I'd like to wriggle myself in here. I—I—I'd like to be mistress here—isn't that so? No, my little angel. This can't go on! It has to stop—at once! I've long had my suspicions of what you call your unhappy love of the factory. Get out of here! Get out of here, I say."

Before he had finished Lilly was out.

She still held the parcel in a convulsive grip.

She reeled as she walked along—past bright red houses, which threatened to fall on her. A truck loaded with flour bags scattered white clouds. A pulley screeched in a factory yard. When someone came toward her, she made a wide dÉtour, keeping to the edge of the pavement. She feared he might grin his contempt at her.

A skein of silk thread lay on the pavement. Lilly picked it up, and thought of hanging herself.

Something must be done.

To be abandoned—very well—if it could not be helped. Each one, when her turn came, would have to resign herself to her fate.

But to be chased away—thrown out—like a thief—like the vilest woman of the street—to be shaken off like a disgusting worm, to be spat upon!

Something must be done.

Anything to take revenge upon him.

Even if he was now unsusceptible to her revenge—all the same! He would discover he had been to blame throughout. If she descended into the mire, which had heretofore filled her with horror, if she went to ruin—!

Something must be done—any deed of self-degradation which made her fit to be treated in that way and no other—and freed her from those torments—those torments.

Her heart hung in her breast like a painful swelling. She could have drawn a line about it, so sharply defined it was against her side. It seemed to be in the clutch of sharp claws.

Again those lurking vultures occurred to her, the vultures of Kellermann's picture.

They were waiting for Lilly Czepanek. For whom else?

Suddenly something flashed and hissed in her brain like a tongue of fire.

That was it! That was it!

She summoned a cab.

On! On!

Whither?

She ordered the coachman to drive as quickly as possible to Mr. Kellermann's studio.

She ran up the steps, the same steps down which eight months before she had glided at Richard's side rocked in bliss. All a-tremble she stepped into the dark anteroom, which had the stuffy smell of a badly aired bedroom. Her hand almost failed her as she knocked at the studio door.

Mr. Kellermann in his breeches and slippers was squatting on the floor beside the Turkish tabouret in exactly the same position as at her first visit. He was busied with a coffee machine, and looked contented and seedy.

"Mercy on us!" he said, and drew the collar of his night-shirt together. "What signifies this sudden appearance, O noble goddess? Are the suns setting again?"

Lilly did not reply. She laid her hat and wraps on a chair, and began to unhook her waist, looking about for a screen. There was none.

The models who came to pose for Mr. Kellermann were not squeamish.

He jumped up and stared at her.

When he realised what she meant to do, he broke into exclamations of delight.

"What did I say? What did I say? I said you'd come. You see! We've reached the point at which we're screaming to be set free."

"I'm not screaming," she replied, drawing up the corners of her mouth disdainfully. "If you please, look somewhere else."

He made a dash for the picture leaning against the wall in its blind frame, blew the dust off, drove the wedge in tight, and adjusted the easel, laughing all the while, and grunting:

"She came after all."

Lilly had torn off her outer garments and was pulling at the drawing ribbon of her chemise. Her paralysed fingers could scarcely untie the knot.

Now she stood entirely unclothed.

The garish studio light pricked her flesh painfully as with a thousand needles.

She wanted to groan and creep into a corner, but she turned her clenched fists outward, threw back her shoulders, and presented herself to the painter's greedy gaze.

"Why don't you begin?" she asked. As she spoke she felt that her smarting scorn was distorting her face.

"I'll begin immediately," he stammered, choking over each word. "I won't utter—a syllable—or the vision will vanish. I'll begin."

He snatched up the palette, pressed the tubes, and readjusted the picture on the easel.

He made a few strokes, then threw the brushes down. He reeled like a drunkard.

"No use this way," he said, mumbling to himself. "You must pose."

"Just as you wish," she replied, still with that mocking smile, and stretched out her arms like the beauty of the picture.

He was not yet satisfied, and wanted to approach her. He did not dare to.

"I will move the mirror, so that you can see for yourself what is wrong in your pose."

He did so.

Lilly shuddered. A strange wild animal, which was not even beautiful, seemed to be standing there.

"Not right yet," she heard him say. "The attitude is meaningless—you've got to know what it's for."

He went to the back of the studio and rummaged among all sorts of gear and fetched out a tremendously thick chain, the colour of rusty iron, which did not clank while being handled.

"It won't be cold and won't weigh you down," he said with a short, forced laugh. "It's made of papier machÉ."

Then she had to suffer his coming close to her and laying the chain about her body.

He was panting and his breath streamed upon her hotly.

Each tremulous touch of his fingers was like a sabre slash.

He returned to the easel, groped for the brushes and began to paint again.

Suddenly he cast everything from him, seized the picture with both hands and dashed it against the easel. One of the rods tore through the canvas and split it in two.

"For God's sake!" cried Lilly, horror-stricken.

He threw himself upon her.

She feebly attempted to defend herself with the chain.

But the chain was made of papier machÉ.

And she would not have had it otherwise.

Down into the mire, quickly, with closed eyes!

The next day Richard paid his customary afternoon visit. His lids were reddened and his eyes glassy. He looked completely crushed, but he behaved as if nothing had occurred.

Lilly had scarcely expected him, and she received him with frigid astonishment.

"Oh," he said, "on account of yesterday. After you left I had a tough discussion with mama. You mustn't come to the factory. I had to promise her that. As for the rest, I think we'll not speak of it any more. The young lady's leaving this evening. So let's kiss."

They kissed. And all was as before.