He stroked his straw-coloured beard complacently, and grinned like a trickster after the performance of a particularly artful dodge. "When do you think the wedding will take place?"
"Why, there has not been--an engagement--yet," stammered Lilly.
"Well, there won't be what is called a real engagement--sending out notices and receiving visits, and so on. As little stir as possible, Miss Czepanek, as little stir as possible. That's my advice. In the delicate situation in which we find ourselves, contrary influences are always to be feared."
"I haven't said 'yes' yet," Lilly ventured to interject.
"Who'd have thought it! A mock refusal! Who'd have thought it! I didn't take you for so good a business woman, Miss Czepanek."
"I am at a loss as to your meaning," said Lilly, who without fully realising why, was growing hot with indignation.
He put one hand to his hip, and continued to be amused.
"Well, well, that's all very fine and practical. But you can't carry such jokes too far. Let _me_ arrange matters. I have some knowledge of these affairs, though, I admit, so important a case has never come to me before. I will endeavour to hasten the wedding as much as possible--for the reasons I have already mentioned. I will also ask for all possible secrecy, at least until his resignation has been accepted. Then nothing need stand in the way of securing the banns, since getting an adequate trousseau need concern us in only a lesser degree. As for your conduct, my dear child, I advise you for the present to remain as undecided, as maidenly, as fresh as possible. The only change I suggest is to use better soap. Everything else may continue to be just as it is. Perhaps you will have to be placed with another family. In that case it will be necessary, of course, to get an outfit, for which the sum realised from the sale of your mother's effects, amounting to--one moment, please." He opened a large account book lying on a rack next to his desk, "amounting to--A, B, C, Czepanek--amounting to one hundred and thirty-six marks and seventy-five pfennig, will come in very handy. Æsthetic enjoyment of the circumstances leads me to place my own purse also at your disposal. Well, so much for the time preceding the wedding! As to the incomparably more important time following, I should not like you to leave my office before I had given you a few delicate hints, although _unfortunately_, I must deny myself the pleasure of--"