Lilly leaned against the arm of the old spindle-legged sofa. Its worn springs squeaked under her pressure and pricked her thumbs, and the thought flashed into her mind:
"What am I doing here? What is it all to me?"
Von Prell the while stepped from door to door listening.
"If that old Leichtweg had happened to be in the next room," he said, "we should be dying a dog's death. But if you go this instant, the front way, into the courtyard, they might suppose you had come to ask something, and perhaps we can patch it up still."
All Lilly perceived in his words was a sly attempt at evasion, and a fresh flood of indignation overwhelmed her.
"First justify yourself," she cried. "Until you do, I won't go this way, or that way, or the other way."
To enforce her resolve she dropped down on the screeching sofa, which was covered with a dirty grey horseblanket folded into several thicknesses for protection against the sharp points of the springs.
"Very well, then, look here--a fellow's a human being, isn't he? And if he's given the go-by in that common way--"
"Common way?" faltered Lilly. "What was common in my letter? Didn't I tear my heart out and throw it at your feet, and didn't Miss von Schwertfeger--?"
She could not continue. Wrath and despair choked her utterance.
In the meantime Von Prell, who at first had been at a complete loss, arrived at the proper policy to adopt.
"Yes, that's just it," he said, growing more aggrieved with each word. "Is a love like ours to be concluded with a lukewarm homily? And that Schwertfeger--did I deserve being dismissed by you like an asthmatic old dog through the intermediation of a third person, a horrid, disgusting creature? Isn't it enough to make a man desperate after all he's done for you?"
"What--did you--do for me?" queried Lilly.
"Well--wasn't I a self-sacrificing comrade the whole time? Wasn't I disloyal even to my old colonel for your sake, that fine old gentleman, who saved my life, you might say? You see, all that's no small matter. Do you suppose it didn't cut me to the quick? Do you suppose I didn't get the blues? And then to be fooling round here alone night after night with that dung-beetle, that Tommy--the beast smells, I tell you. So why not try to dull one's feelings? Shouldn't I--how shall I say?--deaden the anguish of lost love? Not even deaden it? It's a perfect mystery to me how you can demand such a thing of me. We speak different languages, my dear child--there's a yawning chasm dividing our natures--and you're even willing to risk our two lives for such mummery. As a rule, I'm _not_ an old aunt, but indeed, if only I had you out of this place."