Her husband, in spite of his jealous misgivings, had retained his clearness of judgment sufficiently to appreciate the guilelessness of Lilly's conscience, and he now threw his suspicions to the wind with a laugh that he generally reserved for his broadest jokes. Lilly, having begun, was anxious to play further on her husband's emotions, so she went on to describe the wonderful lectures on the history of art, and how the poor invalid lecturer had infected her with his own burning yearnings to see Italy. Her cheeks flamed, her eyes swam under her heavily drooping lids, as she went on giving voice to her dreams and drawing word-pictures, almost forgetful that she had a listener. Suddenly he asked, "Shall we go there?" She couldn't answer. The very proposal seemed too much bliss. Then he began to think it over seriously. A man might just as well get into the train and be landed at Milan or Verona as mope in one place and be worried to death by stupid fools dogging your footsteps. Lilly flung her arms round his neck, then threw herself at his feet. This was indeed too much happiness. Her life now became an alternate dream of ecstasy and a fever of anxiety, for something might always happen to prevent their going. First, they had to wait for the knickerbocker suit, which he ordered at a tailor's as the correct get-up for travelling, and then there were a dozen other delays. The truth may have been that he was pondering whether he could command enough youthful agility to keep pace with her excessive _elan_ and capacity for enjoyment. Then a certain incident hurried on their departure. For several days they had been shadowed by a fair-haired, bull-necked young man, six feet in height, who with stubborn pertinacity tried to attract Lilly's attention. Judging by his appearance he was probably an Anglo-Saxon tourist. There was in his manner a lofty nonchalance which rendered him absolutely indifferent to the threatening darts of the colonel's eyes. For the first time Lilly saw her husband plunged in deep thought. He paced the room, muttering to himself repeatedly, "I shall have to box his ears"; or, "I must find a second." The next day, when this irrepressible person followed them at a few yards' distance across the Schlossplatz, the colonel wheeled round and confronted him. The fair giant measured him from top to toe without removing his short pipe from between his lips. "I may look at anyone I choose to," he said in broken German, "and I may go anywhere I choose to." He made a gesture as if he meant to turn up his coat-sleeves and struck an extremely pugilistic attitude, which discouraged all idea of inflicting on him a chivalrous correction.