The colonel, with a final attempt to bring the matter to an honourable issue, handed him his visiting-card, which the stranger put in his pocket with a friendly "Thank you, sir," without evidently the least notion of what this formality portended. A little crowd began to collect, and there was nothing left for the colonel but to turn his back on him. The result of this passage of arms was, that in future the Englishman considered it his right to bestow on Lilly and her husband a greeting when they met. And the colonel, who tried unsuccessfully to stifle his consciousness of having made himself ridiculous in a torrent of oaths, resolved to leave Dresden on the spot. In Munich, where they stopped a few days, it being the middle of April, to pay their respects at the Hofbraeuhaus, nothing happened of a ruffling nature. But the colonel had become nervous. He cast furious and intimidating glances at the most harmless admirers, and began to heap reproaches on Lilly's head. It seemed as if everyone at a first glance, he said, could divine she was not a lady, otherwise she would not attract so much vulgar notice. At another time Lilly would have been bitterly grieved, but now she was unmoved. She only smiled absently, for her spirit was far away, and already she fancied that she breathed the air of the promised land, on whose threshold she believed she was standing. One night more in the train, a short day in Bozen, and then the magic gates would swing back. Nothing now could prevent the fulfilment of bliss. * * * * * They were in a compartment of the express, which leaves Munich late in the evening and crosses the Brenner Pass in the gloom of early morning. Lilly and her husband sat in the corner seats by the windows. Not far from them, on the corridor side, a young man had taken his place with a pleasant smile, and then, without heeding his fellow-travellers, had soon become deep in a book that appeared to be written in Italian. Probably he was Italian too, an ambassador from that earthly paradise come to bid her welcome. Her interest in him was thus instantly arrested. From under her lowered lids, apparently asleep, she studied him. His severely cut even features were of a peculiar milky ivory colour. There was not a line or wrinkle in his clear skin, which looked as smooth as enamel. A small, dark, slightly curled moustache adorned his upper lip. The crisp hair on his temples was so closely cropped that the skin underneath gleamed through. She wanted to see what his eyes were like, but these were kept obstinately bent on his book, though he seemed to be only skimming the pages.