Above her in a pine tree she heard a chipping sound which she had learned to recognise at Lischnitz. It was a call both of fear and invitation, which ended in a snappy "Tshek-tshek."
Lilly stood still, looked up, and whistled.
A pair of squirrels had been chasing about the trunk in corkscrew lines, and now, at her appearance, stood stock still in fright.
"Tshek-tshek," Lilly clucked to incite the little red coats to play. She did not succeed, and picked up a pebble from the ground.
Just as she was about to throw it, she saw, behind a tree trunk, two eyes fastened on her, large, questioning astonished eyes, which narrowed under her gaze, and darkened, and tried to turn away, but could not. She knew those eyes. She had looked into them long, long, long ago.
But, no, she had not; she had never before seen them.
The young man who, like herself, had been watching the squirrels play and was still standing half-concealed behind the trunk, his hat in his hand, was an utter stranger. Impossible that she had ever in her life met him. If she had, she would never have forgotten him.
It was not easy to forget that serious, reserved Greek face, with the nervous nose narrow across the bridge and the shining dreamer"s eyes.
His appearance was not extremely elegant. It pleased Lilly better so.
He wore a brown, somewhat old-fashioned overcoat, and the suit beneath, of which she caught a glimpse, was of a woolly material sprinkled with little tufts, by no means of German make and certainly not English.
Gradually life came into him. He put on his hat, and stepped from behind the tree.
"Now he"ll speak to me," the sickening thought shot through Lilly"s mind.
No. He merely raised his hat, glanced at her again for the fraction of a second with an expression of query, astonishment, and, at the same time recognition, walked past her, and took the way she had just come.
Lilly also wanted to leave the spot, but she was unable to; and since she must not be discovered looking after him she hid behind the same tree that had concealed him.
"I wonder whether he will look back."
No. He did not look back either. She felt hurt and neglected.
The tall figure dwindled in the distance. "Never been in the army," she thought, judging from his rather heavy gait. Then it seemed to her that he stooped, drew himself up again, and looked back. In fact, he spied about a long time as if compelled to discover her.
But she kept herself carefully hidden and did not move.
He walked on and disappeared behind a curve.
"What a pity I didn"t take the carriage," thought Lilly.
She might be overtaking him now without appearing to follow him, and the seven-pointed coronet would not have failed of its effect. As it was, he naturally cherished a bad opinion of the lady who walked about alone whistling like a boy and throwing pebbles at poor enamoured squirrels.
Nevertheless, while walking homeward, she felt as if she had been presented with a lovely gift.
Where could she have seen him before?
She recalled a young man of the Dresden days. It was once when she was out walking arm in arm with the colonel along the Prager Stra.s.se. She had seen eyes fixed upon her with the very same sad flash of recognition in them.
Then--she remembered it well--she had wanted to look back and ask him:
"Who are you? Do you belong to me? Do you want me to belong to you?"
But even the partial turn of her head would have been a crime in her husband"s eyes.
And now, now that she was free, free to choose her friends according to her heart"s desire, she had let him go, him, the one--whether the same as the Dresden man or another--who belonged to her, perchance, as she to him.
She walked along with half-closed eyes, and conjured up his image. A small, dark, two-cornered beard, so close-cut on his cheeks as to give them a blue sheen. Such beards were seldom to be seen in Berlin.
Frenchmen and Italians affected them. Full, firm, tightly compressed lips, lips such as a sculptor chisels. A high, square forehead, on which something like wrath seemed to be imprinted, not ordinary wrath against herself or any poor mortal. It was not of this world, and it really was divine love.
Thus Lilly"s enthusiasm fed itself. She forgot the way, and strayed about, finally arriving at a spot in an entirely different direction from that which she should have taken. The most dreadful things might have happened to her in the woods, where solitary ladies are exposed to encounters with tramps at any hour of the day. But she scarcely gave heed to her danger. She reached home two hours too late, tired, but in a glow.
She could not eat. She threw herself on the chaise longue and dreamt.
The bell rang. She heard a man"s voice.
It could not be Richard. He never came before half past four.
Adele entered. There was a strange gentleman outside who wished to know whether the lady had lost her card-case. He had found one in the woods.
Lilly jumped to her feet. Actually the little brocade case which she had held in her hand with her silver net purse was gone. In her excitement she had not missed it.
"Like what does the gentleman look?"
Tall and young and handsome, in fact, very handsome.
"A short, dark beard?"
"Yes."
Lilly reeled.
"Let him come in," she stammered. She did not think of beautifying herself. She merely ran her hands over her face and hair in a dazed way.
When he appeared in the doorway she scarcely recognised him, so thick was the red mist before her eyes.
"I beg pardon," she heard him say--it was the serene voice of a man whose ways are not impure--"I would not have disturbed you had your address been on your cards. I found your number in the directory, but I couldn"t be certain whether there were not more of the same name in the city."
"You"re very kind to have taken all that trouble," she replied, inviting him to be seated.
"My name is Dr. Rennschmidt," he said, waiting behind the back of his chair until she had settled herself in a corner of the sofa. On sitting down he drew the card-case from his pocket and laid it on the table.
She smiled her thanks; and feeling she must enhance the value of his courtesy, she said the case was a memento she prized highly, the loss of which would have distressed her.
"A memento of my husband," she added.
His face grew a shade more serious.
A little pause ensued, during which his eyes rested steadily on her face, reading, questioning, comparing, and wondering. Nothing of that bold groping of other men"s glances. A clean, unconscious joy amounting to devoutness lay in his look.
"Didn"t we meet just a little while ago at the edge of the woods?" Lilly asked warily.