She passed out through the unfinished alterations in the courtyard, with flushed cheeks. When she was out in the street her mood was one of mingled triumph and disappointment. "No, that was _not_ my path of fate," she said to herself. But she had unexpectedly acquired a fiance, and that was something. CHAPTER IV August Kellermann passed for an artist of considerable reputation, though his pictures did not sell. He was a sharp-witted, sharp-tongued, good-natured person in the middle of the thirties, well-versed in all the vices of the capital. He had a sandy Rubens beard, prominent little eyes, with an eternal weariness in them as if he had never been in bed the night before. He rented a studio that had once been a photographer's. It was of huge dimensions, like a magnified glass case. He had draped the roof, as a protection from glare and heat, with Turkish rugs propped by poles, giving his studio the air of a Bedouin's tent. When Lilly stepped out of the dim twilight of the anteroom into the garish brilliance of the studio, which was so lofty it seemed part of the sky, she found him in a plum-coloured overall, with green down-at-heel slippers over which his red plaid socks hung in rucks, seated on the floor, beside an Oriental coffee apparatus, stirring an extinguished spirit-lamp. "Good Lord!" he exclaimed, without getting up to return her greeting; "this is a visit worth having." Lilly turned to go away again, and he immediately sprang to his feet, pulled up his trousers, and with a shrug of his shoulders dusted a bamboo chair with his sleeve. "Sit down, my child. Though I have nearly given up painting for pottery, and couldn't make use of Helen of Troy herself as a model, I am not going to let you slip through my fingers." Lilly handed him her benefactor's letter of introduction, and pointed out his mistake. "Now he'll change his behaviour," she thought. But nothing of the sort happened. "What a bore!" he said, scratching his head. "Most noble of women, why are you so beautiful? Ex-general's wife!"--here she was, labelled again--"I should have expected eye-glasses and pimples, and _you_ come along!" "You probably know my reasons for coming to you?" asked Lilly, too downhearted to resent his manner. He clapped his fleshy hand to his forehead. "Let me see! Let me see! The worthy Dehnicke, who is my dry-bread giver--'dry' referring to giver as well as bread--did, I think, mention the matter to me a day or two ago; but I suffer from a congenital dulness of comprehension, perhaps you will kindly ... er ...?" Lilly explained what she wanted, and he burst into uncontrollable laughter.