A new life began for Lilly once again.

An end to her loneliness!

Every afternoon Mr. Dehnicke came for his cup of tea, and now he was no longer Mr. Dehnicke; he was Richard, dear, beloved Richard, to whom one waved and nodded cheerily from the window, whom one received with outstretched arms in front of the apartment door, against whose knees one crouched on the floor, and from whose forehead one smoothed away the naughty frown of care with a tender "poor boy, poor boy."

Oh, how needless to have hoarded up such a wealth of love! She could lavish it in profusion, yet there was always a fresh supply.

Away with the grande dame, the haughty aristocrat! She stooped to him, played the little girl, wanted to be found fault with and scolded, looked terrified at the faintest shadow of displeasure on his face, and tried to read his every wish—wishes he himself was not aware of—from his eyes. She wanted to be grateful for his goodness, his tenderness, for everything he had done to save her from ruin.

No wonder, then, that by degrees he lost his adoring upward glance, and began to make demands, sometimes very whimsical demands, and assume the manner of a husband. Now and then he even recalled his benefactions, not very emphatically, though with sufficient explicitness to change what was at first voluntary humility into a duty.

Since Lilly had become his mistress, his attitude to the world had veered about, so that his entire life stood on a different basis.

The pedantic bronze manufacturer so dreadfully concerned for his good name and standing in respectable society had changed into a daring fast liver.

So far from hesitating to be seen at Lilly's side on the streets and promenades, he could not display himself to the eyes of the crowd often enough. The good old brougham no longer sufficed. He must also have a new-fashioned, spacious victoria, in which to drive with Lilly along Unter den Linden to the Tiergarten. When they went out together in the evening, he chose the places where most of fashionable Berlin is to be found, and tried to obtain seats from which they could be observed on all sides.

He sat in the boxes at theatre with a swelling shirt front, carefully tailored and barbered and manicured, and endeavoured to present an indifferent blasÉ smile to the glasses levelled upon him and his companion.

He ordered his clothes from the representatives of London houses that bob up in Berlin every spring and autumn in search of customers. He adopted a monocle and stuck his handkerchief inside his left cuff. The military officer in him came to the surface and endeavoured to ape the effeminate gestures of the fops of the Guard.

In short, he bent all his energies upon proving himself worthy of a mistress of Lilly's rank and qualities. He soon discovered that connection with so exquisite a creature, so far from damaging him, cast an unhoped for glamour about his life, even about his business, lending it an air of splendour that all his superb remodelling had not been able to give it.

If the senior member of the firm of Liebert & Dehnicke, the world said, can indulge in such an extravagance, his goods must be selling much better than we thought. And many a dealer who had formerly bought of his competitors now came to him, impelled by those mysterious powers of suggestion whose laws psychologists and historians have in vain endeavoured to fathom.

People showed him greater respect, but a respect mitigated by that jovial, confidential smile which the world always smiles when it pardons a man of proven harmlessness an interesting secret little infirmity.

Questions like "When are we going to see you outside of business?" or "What do you say to making a night of it together now and then?" questions from persons who had paid no attention to him formerly, became as cheap as the bronze wares of Liebert & Dehnicke.

"By right, I ought to charge you to the expense account of the business," he once said with a smile to Lilly, who by and by ceased to feel pained at delicate jokes of that sort.

The evening excursions, which took place three or four times a week, gradually became a matter of habit, and rapidly acquainted Lilly with all the soap-bubble pleasures that float from the witch's cauldron of Berlin life.

It was now too late in the winter for those great public balls, at which one shams the mysterious lady of rank beneath a silk domino. To compensate there were the theatres where observances are lax and the lowest vices of the Parisian boulevards, diluted and warmed over, are dished up to tickle the palates of hungry pleasure-seekers; all-night cabarets, where obscene jests are clothed in literary garb, and wild women escaped from the confines of middle-class life vie with professional music-hall singers for the palm of vulgarity; bars and grill-rooms; back rooms of aristocratic restaurants which the law forbids to be locked, and in which chilly orgies are smiled upon mockingly by correct waiters; and, to wind up with, certain cafÉs, sparkling with lights and blue with cigarette smoke, where the weary nerves seek and find their final stimulation in contact with prostitutes selling their wares in open market.

In the beginning Lilly opposed these doings. Her senses demanded satisfaction of another sort. She had a vague feeling of mournfulness, as if each day of this new pleasure-filled life were carrying her farther and farther from those laurel-lined stairs to which her longing had gone out. But when she saw that her every wish for quiet encountered sulky resistance, she gave up her desires voluntarily, and kept her dreams for a better time, a time which would bring all her hopes to fruition, which—which—her fancy might venture no farther.

Besides, it was always so fascinating, so dazzling.

Lilly and Dehnicke were seldom left alone. In proceeding from place to place they would meet acquaintances, many of whom Lilly had seen at the carnival; and they would join company informally; or frequently, appointments were made beforehand. So there was quite a group of them, a little fixed nucleus, about which newcomers kept crystallising.

One of the faithful was that sweet little brunette with the unsteady, glowing eyes and the foolish smile, who had wanted her friend and herself to form a little family group at supper with Lilly and Dehnicke. Her name was Mrs. Sievekingk. A vague desire for "life" had caused her to run away from her husband, a physician somewhere in Further Pomerania. After having gone through various experiences she was now living with the proprietor of a large steam laundry, a red-haired swell, thin as a broomstick, Wohlfahrt by name. He suffered from dyspepsia, and Mrs. Sievekingk always had ready in her hand-bag an assortment of pills and powders. But this touching, energetic care of him did not prevent her from deceiving him for the sake of any man who courted her. Everybody knew it and nobody blamed her. She was a poetess and had to create experiences to sing about. As a result many a lover who thought he was sinning with her in absolute secrecy would a few weeks later discover an exact portrait of himself as the hero of a passionate sketch or a murky love poem in some magazine of the latest school.

There was Mrs. Welter also, the divorced wife of the renowned composer, whose round, russet face—she had returned lately from a mysterious pleasure trip to Algeria—formed a droll contrast to the golden aureole of her mass of dyed hair. It was dangerous to associate with her. She borrowed of everybody she met, although she was in comfortable circumstances, receiving an ample alimony from her former husband's rich relatives. Her constant state of want was due to her infinite goodness, which led her to turn over all she possessed and all her friends gave her to two cashiered lovers, each of whom in his way was a scamp. Nobody knew to whom she was attached at present. She was frequently seen with a district attorney, who was stiff as a poker and too formal to use a toothpick on his hollow teeth, and so sat for hours in silence busily rolling his tongue between his jaws.

Among others was an extremely thin little shrewmouse, dainty and devilish, with steely eyes and thin pinched lips turning inward. She always wore white silk, and dragged a rustling, fan-shaped train. She called herself Mrs. Karla. Nobody knew her real name except her lover, a mere boy, the son of a manufacturer. Pale, puny, and completely in her toils, he followed her about until dawn indulging her in her sapping lust for pleasure. In an unguarded moment he revealed that she was the wife of a Jewish scholar who lived in absolute seclusion, and actually believed that she was occupied in satisfying the social demands of the Berlin West Side. And while she wantoned with all sorts of people in music halls and chambres separÉes, her husband sat quietly at home poring over his statistical tables.

There were women of every description, for whose past and whose means of subsistence no one concerned himself, provided they were pretty and elegant and not exactly cocottes.

In addition to the ladies' legitimate escorts were a large number of gentlemen, who came every evening to fish in troubled waters. These gentlemen constituted the real enlivening element, and among them was the Dr. Salmoni who had wielded "the big stick" at Mr. Kellermann's carnival while smiling a mournful smile. In his company, Lilly felt, she always grew embarrassed and reticent, although it seemed to her a secret bond united them. As at the carnival, he exercised his caustic wit upon every person who crossed his path, with the exception of herself, whom he passed by considerately. Now and then he dissected her with his probing eyes, and two or three times he whispered softly en passant: "What are you seeking to find here, lovely lady?"

Mr. Kellermann, too, presented himself not infrequently; grew befuddled, and then threw out remarks about "a chained beauty crying to be set free," remarks which Lilly assiduously endeavoured not to hear. At the end of the evening he usually discovered he was out of pocket, upon which Richard came to his rescue.

Such was the world in which from now on Lilly's days—and nights—glided along.

She received mysterious messages of all sorts; invitations from strange gentlemen to discreet rendezvous, flowers sent anonymously, from modest bouquets of violets to gorgeous baskets of orchids, visits from ladies of suspicious character, who were organising private charity circles, and with highly significant smiles asked Lilly to join—a turbid surf of desire forever rolling up to her threshold. At first it frightened her; finally she took no notice of it.

Spring came, and with it the races at which everybody appears who lays claim for any reason at all to membership in the world of elegance.

Since Lilly had been enthroned at Richard's side, the slumbering cavalry officer in him had been awakened to such lively consciousness, his passion for native horse-breeding had swelled to such vast proportions that he would not have dreamed of missing a single race. Although he never betted, his pockets were stuffed with crumpled tips; chances and pedigrees constituted his sole topic of conversation, and Lilly, who took not the least interest in it all, willingly lent him her undivided attention.

One morning, on studying the account of the previous day's race in her paper, the following passage attracted her notice:

"Among the charming representatives of the world which knows no ennui, was the impressive beauty who for some time past has permitted glimpses of herself everywhere, and who still radiates the discreet atmosphere of the haute volÉe, which, it is rumoured, was once her native element. She favors violet, and in accordance with a famous precedent, she might be dubbed 'la dame aux violettes.' We congratulate ourselves upon the appearance of this new star, who will only add to the reputation of our metropolitan life."

"Who can that be?" thought Lilly, slightly envious, and passed in review the beautiful women she had admired the day before.

Then suddenly the blood rushed to her head. Her glance sought the Redfern costume, which she had not yet hung away, and was lying across the back of a chair. It was two years old, but so wonderfully well made that it could compete with the new creations of the spring. Since this was the only suit of the sort she possessed—Richard must be spared unnecessary expense—she had worn it several times in succession.

"Yes, she no longer doubted—the item referred to her and no other. Her first thought was:

"How pleased Richard will be."

She, too, was pleased. Mrs. Laue's boldest prophecies seemed about to be fulfilled. She was growing famous. She actually figured in the papers.

But that feeling of dread! That enigmatic, senseless dread which forever crouched in the bottom of her heart, and crept to the surface at the very moment a new event led her on a stage further toward grandeur and happiness. Since she had stepped into the world at Richard's side, she had encountered nothing but what awakened gladness, pride and hope. Everybody respected and flattered her. Scorn of herself, self-torturing thoughts, had passed away, giving place to a quiet appreciation of her own value in the presence of strangers. But that stupid, dull dread never left her. It would not be silenced.

Earlier in the afternoon than usual, Richard came down the street beaming and openly waving the paper up to her.

After they had embraced ten times and read the passage in the paper twice as often, Richard turned taciturn and gloomy, folded his arms like Napoleon, and paced up and down the room with short, sharp steps.

You could see ambition seething in his brain.

The bell rang.

Little Mrs. Sievekingk was announced.

She had come for a friendly little talk with Lilly several times before, though the two had not grown more intimate as a result. This time she arrived opportunely, to help them taste the joy of Lilly's fame.

Her grey velvet suit shimmered in the afternoon sunlight, and the red turban with the waving aigrette nestled in her dark, curly head like a tongue of flame darting downward.

She held her hand out to Lilly with her seductive smile, but when she turned to Richard, her eyes flashed with some of the energy with which she insisted upon her lover taking a dose.

In the presence of strangers Lilly and Richard still kept up the myth of a Platonic friendship. So Richard modestly reached for his hat to extract from Lilly the polite request that he stay a little longer. But the small, dark woman anticipated them.

"Don't be foolish," she said, "don't behave as if you weren't perfectly at home here. You may call each other by your first names, as if from a slip of the tongue, and I'll pretend not to have heard a thing."

Lilly and Richard smiled, and while Lilly poured a cup of tea for her guest, Richard played with the paper. He wanted to make certain whether Mrs. Sievekingk had learned of the great triumph.

"What I really came for was on account of that stuff," she said, "and you are the very person I want to speak to about it. I suppose you're awfully proud of it."

Richard made a deprecating gesture, and smiled complacently.

"To be quite frank, I credited you with a grain or two more sense."

"I beg pardon," Richard observed, taken aback.

Lilly started. Her dread of the morning grew into the suspicion that her great fortune had a cloven hoof.

"Just let me speak," said the little woman, her eyes now flashing very steadily with a conscious purpose. "I have experience in such matters. My red-head began the same way with me. Has the thought never occurred to you, Mr. Dehnicke, that when a choice creature like this one sitting here, something so sweet and glorious that you'll never find her like, entrusts herself to you, you have assumed a vast responsibility? Do you think we're here to puff and swell your vanity? We're not factory girls or ballet dancers to be stuck into silks and laces and led around to show the world that you're a fine buck. We have fallen from society, I know, but we're not to be classed, not by a long shot, with those women to whose ranks you would like to reduce us."

Richard wanted to reply, but could not find the right words, and Mrs. Sievekingk continued, bending toward Lilly tenderly:

"So here comes a poor little mite in its unsuspecting aristocracy, and says: 'Take me. Do with me what you want.' And what will you do with her? You'll make a fast woman of her, at least what the world takes to be a fast woman. Don't contradict me. As a beginning you've already done very well." She pointed to the paper.

"Once the yellow journals take us up, then the counts of the Guard are on the spot, and then, may the Lord have mercy on us! They're much better-looking and more chivalrous than you; and if we must become cocottes, we'd like at least to know for whom and for what. And if you affect indifference, then you're nothing in our opinion but a bad joke of yesterday."

Lilly's breath was taken away. She had not thought it possible that anyone should dare to speak to Richard in such a tone. She laid her hand on his shoulder deprecatingly to pacify him. She feared he might become angry and enforce his rights as master of the place.

The very contrary occurred.

"I will gladly do what you say," he replied, mealy-mouthed, "if only I knew—"

"I'll tell you what you don't know. You mustn't lead her around like an animal in a show. Don't expose her to the gaze of all sorts of people. Don't seat her in the front of the box at opera for every rake to stare at."

Richard plucked up his spirits for a defence.

"Aren't you to be seen everywhere?"

"Certainly. Because I myself want to see things. That's the reason I ran away from my horror of a husband. Nevertheless I don't take box seats. And I don't fly around race tracks either. I'm by nature a Bohemian, while Lilly, with her quiet, refined heart, is a bourgeois, and a bourgeois she ought to remain, as if she were your wife by law. But neither of us wants to descend to the demi-monde, I mean what we mean by demi-monde in Germany. In the French sense we've been in it a long time. That's what I have to say to you, my dear sir."

Richard arose helplessly, quite red in the face, gnawing ferociously at his moustache.

"I've always had nothing but her good at heart," he said. "Beside, it was your wish, too, wasn't it, Lilly?"

Lilly could not make denial. She did not want to shame him any further; and she turned aside without replying.

"And supposing it was her wish a thousand times!" the little woman rejoined in Lilly's stead. "You should have said to her: 'My dear, you don't understand. Since we are not married'—nota bene, that would be the best for both of you—'we must live modestly, otherwise I should do you mortal injury, I should throw you in the mire.'"

Lilly felt tears rising to her eyes, as always when the subject of marriage in connection with Richard and herself; arose. Not to show her emotion, she quickly left the room to fetch Richard's overcoat. It was already quarter of six.

She accompanied him to the door and kissed him tenderly. He must by no means suppose that he had jarred her or that she bore him a grudge.

When she returned to her guest, she took his part eagerly. He was very dear and good. He had saved her from ruin, and certainly meditated no evil.

"I'm not here to sow dissension," said the little woman, laughing. She then asked to be allowed to remain a little longer. "My first name is Jula, and please avail yourself of it in the future."

They sat hand in hand on the straight sofa, over which Walter's masterful smile had been replaced by an extremely indifferent sheep-shearing scene. On the glass plate in front of each was a bit of nibbled cake. For the first time in her life Lilly enjoyed the pleasure of possessing something like a friend—she had always felt uneasy in Miss von Schwertfeger's presence.

The canary bird sang a sorry spring song, and the sparrows outside in the chestnut trees responded. The May sun painted red spirals on the wall, and from time to time a greenish golden flash darted from the aquarium when one of the little fish shot through the waving algÆ.

The hour of confidences had struck.

"I put on mighty superior airs just then," said Mrs. Jula. "But it was necessary to, my dear. Because you're just like me, you are standing on the very edge. One touch, and over we go—where no one will pick us up. If we could rely on our own character, our plight would not be so bad, but there are no two ways about it, we can't always be faithful—we don't want to be."

"How can you say such a thing?" cried Lilly, horror-stricken.

Mrs. Jula ran her little red tongue along her lips.

"Just wait, my dear. The men we meet are really not calculated to make us see that we are here for one alone. In fact, the only way to enjoy them is in the plural. Oh, I could tell you things! But I don't want to alarm you. Besides, there's a danger attached to the plural. Each man we give ourselves up to robs us of a piece of what is best in us—what is best, I tell you, even if we can't clearly define it. It isn't consciousness of our own worth, because, if possible, that survives. It's not purity either. We don't give a fig for purity. Happiness, certainly not. We should die of dulness if we stuck to one man. I've spoken to a number of women, and they all have the same feeling. Some of them think it's better not to fall in love, and do it just from caprice. Some swear by the grand passion, which is to consecrate everything. No two persons, I suppose, think alike in this respect. And now I want to give you a little advice, because your turn will come some day. Don't accept any gifts, at least, no gifts of money value. At the utmost flowers, and none too many of them. And don't give gifts in return, because everything belongs to 'him.' Married women may; but it's not seemly for us. In general, avoid the amant de cÆur, because amant-de-cÆurdom is characteristic of prostitutes. Married women may do all that, because they have to take revenge for being tied to the 'one.' We, on the contrary, are free. We are permitted to go whenever we want to. But we mustn't. Anything, but not that."

"Why mustn't we?" asked Lilly, who suddenly began to feel her chains.

"Married women may. They may everything. They may be divorced as often as they want, and carry their heads just as high as before. As for us, each time we're thrust lower into the world of prostitutes; and the oftener we change, the more we become free booty. All very well if we have money of our own. But neither you nor I have. They hover over us like vultures ready to swoop down upon us. If she's allowed herself to be supported by him—and him—and him, why isn't she to be had for my good money, too? That's the reason we must hold fast to the one we have, no matter how small and horrid he is, no matter how repulsive we think him.

"I don't understand," said Lilly. "If you're with a man, you love him."

"Oh—do you mean to say you loved every man you were with?"

"Why, there weren't so many," replied Lilly. "Beside my husband, the general"—she could not deny herself the joy of uttering that proud word—"there was only one other, and now—here—"

"Oh, stuff!" cried Mrs. Jula in righteous indignation. "Do you want to blossom in my eyes as a rose of virtue?"

Lilly protested she was speaking the truth.

Mrs. Jula could not credit it.

"Why, then, you're not one of us! You ought really be a judge's wife."

Lilly laughed. She who had always thought sentence had long before been pronounced upon her immoral conduct, now heard herself ridiculed for her excess of virtue.

"Oh, if I were to tell you the stories of all the women we meet," continued Mrs. Jula. "One of them goes with girls in secret. One rents out rooms to students, but only to students she likes. And then there's one"—her voice sank to a whisper—"who fetches her lovers in from the street."

Lilly shuddered.

"What! I've sat next to a woman like that, and never suspected it!"

Mrs. Jula's eyes glowed into space.

"It's dreadful, isn't it?" she said, and laughed. "Well, it doesn't bother me. I have my poems. They lend sanctity to my acts and wash me clean again. It's for their sake I do it all. I need sensations, yes, I need sensations. I must feel my blood chase through my veins. I must study, study—something new in each one. No matter how inane a man may be, so inane that a thimble would hold his soul, nevertheless he has one hour of intoxication to give you, one hour in which all the bells chime and even the spheres make their heavenly music. And the more men you possess, the more life you possess, the more souls you creep into. All the doors of life fly open. All the secrets are revealed. If you can hear the pulsebeat of a stranger, can feel it under your fingers—he's yours—he's you yourself. Then you live one life more. Yes, that's life. That's what I call life."

Lilly said to herself she could not possibly take this talk seriously, though hot and cold waves shivered through her body.

"I don't understand what you say," she replied, and rose.

Mrs. Jula did not even hear her. A mystic fire smouldered in her eyes. She looked like a priestess sacrificing to dark gods.

It struck eight o'clock.

The maid had set the table in the dining-room, and had laid a cover for the strange lady, who did not seem disposed to leave. She now came to announce that the meal was served.

"Will you stay and dine with me?" asked Lilly, somewhat against her will.

At last Mrs. Jula woke up. She neither accepted nor declined, but arose and disengaged her flaming hat from her dark curls.

"I'm crazy, am I not?" she said, and the foolish, seductive smile blossomed about her lips again.

Drawing a breath of relief, Lilly opened the door to the dining-room.

The table gleamed with snowy damask, strewn with leaves of light formed by the pierced shade of the hanging lamp. The gaily coloured dishes, which Lilly had bought cheap at a sale, were a copy of an old Strasburg pattern. The knives and forks as well as the set of casters and the sugar tongs were of the finest plate, to be distinguished from real silver only by the mark.

When Richard stayed for the evening meal, he should find everything as shining and substantial as at his mother's.

Mrs. Jula burst into raptures.

"Oh, how beautiful your place is. How dear! How charming! Am I not right in saying you were born to be a married woman? You ought to see my rubbish at home. What's the use? If my red-head has spoiled his stomach in a restaurant on larded lamb kidneys or turkey aux truffes, the next day I have to prepare gruel and toast and I serve it to him directly from the pot. What's the use of making a lot of fuss and setting a table?"

"Thank the Lord!" thought Lilly. "She's herself again."

The meal was modest enough—various cold cuts with roasted potatoes, and the remnants of a pastry for dessert. But Mrs. Jula ate as if such delights had not been spread before her for years. And she had to know exactly where Lilly got her supplies.

Lilly informed her accurately. For the sake of cheapness, she said, she got her cold meats from a man in the country, whose address she would be glad to give Mrs. Jula.

"I divined it immediately," said Mrs. Jula, softly, her eyes staring meditatively. After a pause she added more softly: "That's just the way it was there."

"There—where?" asked Lilly.

"Why, in my home."

Suddenly Mrs. Jula threw her napkin on the table, jumped from her seat, and stepped to the open window, wringing her hands and pressing them to her forehead.

"I'm going to ruin! I'm going to ruin! I'm going to ruin!" she moaned out into the night.

"What's the matter?" faltered Lilly in fright, and also jumped up.

"I want to go back to my husband. I want to go back to my husband. He's a cross old piece, I know. And it's death to live with him. It's true, it's true! But I do want to go back to him. I'm going to ruin here. I'm going to ruin here."

Lilly stepped behind her and stroked her neck.

"Why should you go to ruin here?" she comforted her. "You just now gave me such splendid advice about how to keep from going to ruin. Besides, you have a mainstay in your art which I lost long ago." She looked with a sigh at the sample closets, in which the last of her pressed-flower woods reposed unseen. "No, you won't go to ruin You will reach the heights, from which you will look down on us poor women."

Mrs. Jula sobbed on her shoulder.

"Never again, never again," she wailed. "I can't pull myself out of this whirlpool. It's as if I were poisoned. My brain is poisoned. I'm going to ruin. I'm going to ruin."

Lilly clasped her gently under the arm, and led her back to the unlighted drawing-room, and seated her in the corner of the sofa where she had sat before.

"It's nice and dark here," Mrs. Jula said, whimpering like a child. "So I'm going to confess everything, everything. But close the door. There mustn't be a ray of light."

Lilly closed the door of the dining-room.

They now sat in darkness. The evening dusk reflected from the canal through the chestnut trees, still thinly leaved, poured a vapoury grey over the tear-stained face.

"Before," began Mrs. Jula, "I told you of a woman who seeks her adventures on the street, and you jumped up in horror. Do you know who that woman is? I am that woman."

"For God's sake!" cried Lilly.

"Yes, I am that woman. The evenings my red-head leaves me alone, I put on dark clothes, and go to parts where no one who knows me is likely to meet me. If somebody I come across pleases me, I give him a look—as a rule he turns back and speaks to me—and I go with him to common saloons, or to a little confectionery shop—anywhere he wants to. Or I sit with him on a bench in the dark—and if he pleases me still more—I go with him—wherever else he wants to."

"Oh, how terrible!" cried Lilly, pressing her hands to her eyes. Now she knew why a few months before something had been pulling her to the street all the time, all the time; why a delicious shiver had coursed through her body when a man spoke to her in the dark. She had simply been too fearsome to answer him.

"Now that you know what I am, you won't want me to stay sitting here on your sofa," cried Mrs. Jula. "Be perfectly frank. I'm ready to go." She reached out pleadingly for Lilly's hands.

Lilly seemed to herself like a Good Samaritan who has met one who is grievously ill and must render that assistance which the moment requires.

"But why do you do it?" she asked gently. "You are not so lonely. How did it come about?"

"Yes, how did it come about? Do you know how your life turned out as it did? It's all very well and good for people to reproach us with weakness. One necessity always holds out its hand to another. Each wish gives birth to another. And you always think you're doing what is right and what fate has prescribed."

"That's true," faltered Lilly, recalling the decisive moments of her own life.

"This is what I've always said to myself: my poetry requires it. I must have experiences, pictures, that frisson, as the French say. But all that's a mere pretext. The truth is, we hunt and hunt and hunt. Your husband's not the right one. Your red-head's not the right man, and none of the rest of them—your sporting business man, or your eh-eh-lieutenant. But he must be somewhere! The stranger sitting at the next table, he's the one, surely. So you come to an understanding with him—after all he's not the right one. It is most certainly not the fine ones. Because they take the trouble to possess us without taking the trouble to find out whether there's anything fine in us, too. So you keep on hunting. Perhaps you will meet him on the street. Finally it turns into fever, which wholly consumes you. Sometimes I can scarcely fall asleep in anticipation of the next dark evening when I shall rove about again. Now, do you see, I must be going to my ruin? When I saw your beautifully set table, all of a sudden a longing for my home and my husband came over me again. Yes, I sometimes have that longing. He has bleared eyes and he smells of carbolic acid. Oh, that vile smell! I'd like so to smell it again For all I care, he may even throw the stethoscope at me again. Besides, he wrote to me I should return to him If I want to, I can. But—I will remain here—and go to my ruin. Life's funny."

She rose and groped for her hat and hatpins lying on the table.

Lilly did not want to let her go in such a state of mind.

"If you feel it is driving you to your ruin, that it's a poison in your blood, why don't you try to resist? Why don't you pluck it out of your system? Mere force of will must help some."

"I've said that to myself," rejoined Mrs. Jula. "But I've never had anyone to whom I could speak about it and who could help me. Now I've found you, it will be easier for me. Now I feel I might be able to. Maybe I will."

"Do you want to give me your promise?" asked Lilly, holding out her hand to her.

"Yes, I promise," Mrs. Jula cried, and delightedly clapped her hand in Lilly's. "You will be my saviour. You are already. I feel it. To show my thanks I will stand guard over you and see to it that no one spoils you. You shan't get to be what I am, or the others."

"Oh, I'll take care of myself," faltered Lilly.

"Yes, that's what you say! But when the dreary void comes—and 'he' grows more and more insipid—just you see! You've nothing left to say to yourself—and you mustn't have children—for God's sake!—we don't have them—all of us know how to prevent them from coming. You mustn't share his activities with him either. He acquaints you with as many of them as he is compelled to. And behind it all you feel the hostility of his family, who look upon you as a species of harpy. Then those cursed schemes of his for marrying that he dishes up whenever he's angry. Above all, the longing. It's like a steady toothache. That's it—like the toothache. You don't want to think of it, but wherever you go, it tortures you. For life cannot end that way. Something must happen. It's much worse than if you're married. Just you wait and see."

Mrs. Jula's wild words increased the pain at Lilly's heart. A desolate mournfulness threatened to attack her.

"Stop," she said. "If it must come, it will come soon enough. I don't care to think of it beforehand."

"Right you are, my dear. It doesn't help any, either."

Mrs. Jula now took leave.

"Will you remember your promise?" asked Lilly from the hall door.

"Forever and ever, I swear to you," and Mrs. Jula slipped down the stairs.

With her brain in a whirl Lilly returned to her dark drawing-room, sad and distraught, and leaned her head out of the open window for a whiff of fresh air.

She saw the little woman, who had just emerged from the front entrance, lightly and gracefully trip along the pavement.

A gentleman in a chimney-pot and patent leather shoes came towards her, passed her, started, stopped abruptly, turned about, and, when he reached her side, raised his hat with exaggerated politeness.

In the light of the street-lamp Lilly saw her face smiling up at him curiously, insinuatingly—and then they went on their way—together.