Yes, she thought, it was a strict school, indeed, which she had entered.
Not a word, not a step, not a movement remained unobserved, or, if necessary, unreproved. She learned to sit at table and in an arm-chair, how to prepare and serve tea, how to invite a person to be seated, how to begin a conversation, how to introduce strangers to each other without getting into a muddle, how to pass over forgotten names, and offer everybody at table a fair portion of cordiality. All these things Lilly learned, and, oh, much more.
But they were only the rudiments to be practised in the small world of the castle or when occasional visitors dropped in. Real instruction was to begin in the fall; for then expeditions to neighboring estates would be undertaken. In the meantime the colonel wished to avoid all contact with the families round about. He could do this without provoking comment, his long bachelorhood serving as a plausible pretext for wishing to prolong his honeymoon to the utmost.
By autumn Lilly was to have been converted into a veritable _grand dame_, who would do honour to her husband's name and rank, and whose tact and ease would conquer all mistrust whether at the festivities in the homes of the gentry or in the club house.
This, the highest ideal on earth, Miss von Schwertfeger kept before Lilly's eyes every minute of the day, and Lilly dreamed of it as she had dreamed of approaching examinations when in the Selecta. Full of fears and doubts she worked over herself night and day.
Her soul found calm only when she went on one of her rambles, or, better still, when she sat behind locked doors in her boudoir.
No, no, Heaven preserve her! Not her boudoir! That wasn't its name.
The first time she had said "boudoir," Miss von Schwertfeger turned very condescending. It was a sitting-room. Only butchers' and bankers' wives--in Miss von Schwertfeger's eyes one and the same--would disfigure it with the other name.
Occasionally, when he quartered officers on their way through the country, the colonel, as if to test Lilly's social ability, would have her preside at table with Miss von Schwertfeger's assistance.
Each time the same scene was enacted. At first Lilly would be stiff as a mechanical doll, incapable of addressing a word she had not learned by rote to these guests gleaming in military resplendence. A glass or two of wine would give her courage. Gradually she would liven up, and even grow merry, and finally bubble over with harmless pleasantries--from where they came flying into her head she did not know--which would so enrapture the gentlemen, most of whom were well past their prime, that they directed all their remarks to her, as if to pay her court, while their eyes hung on her face in enjoyment and desire.