"I am quite astonished," he said, "that, after knocking about with this ribald crew for over two years, your eyes do not betray you." "How should they?" she asked. "Kindly look one moment at the women collected here"--and he indicated with his finger Frau Jula, Welter, and Karla, and two or three more. "How they roll their eyes! how they look up under them! All that is the lingo of ... I was going to say vice; but I detest expressions that are so guiltless of nuances, so I will say instead, the lingo of a criminal phantasy. Do you understand?" "I think so," murmured Lilly. "Now you, my dearest lady, still retain something of the childlike innocence of former years in your glance. Not all, but something. A _soupcon_ of contempt has crept in. No, contempt is not exactly the right word. On the outskirts of deserts there are certain salt pools that are green, dark, and empty, because the ground is poisoned. Do you grasp what I mean?" "I'm not sure that I do," she said. "All the same, it's marvellous. Your soul seems to be a filter; it only assimilates what it likes. Or perhaps you have a private source of succour to draw on that puts you on a higher plane than us, some crystallised immovable ideal ... some fixed star to shoot at ... some sublime Song of Songs." Lilly started so violently that a low cry escaped her lips, loud enough, however, to attract the eyes of the company towards her. "I have only trodden on this lady's foot," explained Dr. Salmoni, "and she was ingenuous enough to think I did it by mistake." Everyone laughed. "A joke sufficiently clumsy to satisfy them," he said in a whisper, leaning close to her shoulder. "I'll make believe not to have heard your involuntary confession. I only value intended avowals. I am not going to ask you to-night, as I asked you once before, what you are doing here. I ask instead: What have you got to lose here? And I can give the answer myself directly: Your style--your style stands in peril. You are on the brink of losing your style, and becoming guiltless of style, and that is a misfortune and a crime at the same moment. Style is to me equivalent to virtue, greatness, sincerity, religion, power, and a few other things all combined--a divine quality. Keep to your last, spiritually and physically. There is _line_ in that; an excellent thing to preserve. Swing yourself up, if you like, to the peaks of a healthy and joyous viciousness--_tant mieux_. You can either dress your hair like a nun's or let it float over the pillow like a bacchante's--but be sure which you decide on." "I think just now that you pleaded the cause of nuances," Lilly said, feeling her wits sharpened by his, "and now you are talking platitudes."