She was ashamed of herself for being so happy; and full of qualms she held her hand out to him gratefully.
"May I hope that in my capacity of Walter's representative I have chanced in a measure to satisfy your taste?"
The mottled golden tops of the chestnuts grew paler, the gaps ever wider that the autumn ate into the foliage. Where a soothing green had cut off the view, now glittered the bright wavelets of the canal. Long barges, laboriously pushed by poles, trailed along in their cumbersome fashion, and the shaggy watchdogs barked up at the aristocratic windows.
Grey, rainy days came stealing upon the city like an enemy, and loneliness laid its octopus clutch on Lilly's breast.
But her work! Yes, she had her work. So long as the first infatuation had lasted and Lilly felt she might hope for some realisation of her plans, she had clung to her work day and night.
But the hoped-for turn of events never came. The announcements she had had printed remained unheeded. Mr. Dehnicke, sole purchaser of her goods, begged her--with a hesitating, embarrassed manner, to be sure, yet explicitly enough--not to be hasty, since the general state of the market was dull.
By degrees her zest in her profession began to languish. She gave up going to Mr. Kellermann for lessons, especially since his insistence upon setting free his "chained beauty" grew steadily more annoying. She locked the half-filled sample closets and completed none but the pieces Mr. Dehnicke ordered.
Oh, those dark, pitiless days, which no laughter brightened, no waiting shortened, and no purpose bound together.
The kitchen was ruled by a young maid, ever silent, whose eyes were greedy and too knowing. Each morning, while the little canary peeped, the fish were given fresh water.
It was somewhat better in the evening when the lights were lit and the crystal chandelier radiated a brilliant white light. Lilly would then wander from room to room changing the position of this or that ornament and constantly reassuring herself how beautifully she lived and how happy she was.
But of what avail was the old rose carpet with its vague vine pattern, the wine-coloured furniture, and the bronze bodies looking as if a golden breath had blown over them? Those bronze bodies whose innermost being after all was nothing more than a zinc alloy, having originated in the factory of Liebert & Dehnicke. Of what avail the charming secrétaire and the writing paper with the golden coronet stamped on it, of which Mr. Dehnicke had immediately ordered five hundred sheets? There was nobody to rejoice with her, nobody whom her longing brought to her side.