He sprang up from his bench, sweeping his cap down as low as his trouser pockets, and answered: "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fritz Redlich, prefect." Lilly felt the old thrill of reverence with which the very word "prefect" had inspired her in the Selecta when her class companions had uttered it. Then she burned with shame to think that she was now nothing better than a shopgirl. But she was determined to impress him by alluding to her more distinguished past. "Up till last autumn," she said, "I was a Selecta pupil. I used to know some of you fellows." "Which of us?" he asked in excitement. She mentioned the names of two young men who had once fluttered round her at the skating-rink, and asked if they were friends of his. "Rather not," he answered with a contempt that didn't seem quite genuine. "They are slackers, and loaf about too much. They intend to join a corps, too, I believe. That's not in our line." There was a pause. Lilly could only discern the outline of his figure as he leaned against the balustrade, it had grown so dark. Drops of soft rain fell on her hair. She would have liked to stay there for ever, watching the dark young figure before her, and with the gentle moisture of spring anointing her head. "You are engaged now in the Circulating Library?" he asked. Lilly assented, and was grateful to him for the nice word "engaged," which seemed a little to ameliorate her lowly position. "And you are going in for your examination?" she inquired. "In the autumn--if all goes well," he replied with a sigh. "And afterwards you will go out into the world," she gushed in copy-book language, "and fight your way in life? Ah, how I wish I were in your shoes." "Why do you wish that, Fraeulein?" he asked in surprise. "You are fighting your way in life now, are you not?" Lilly laughed shrilly. "Oh, but if only I were you!" she exclaimed. "What wouldn't I--oh!" She felt exultant; her limbs seemed to stretch, so that she scarcely knew how to sit still; the light of conquest flashed from her eyes, but there was no conquest really, for it remained unseen in the darkness. She was so overcome, so mad with happiness, that she positively could not stay there, uttering stilted phrases, while within her something shouted: "You standing there with your arms on the balustrade, I love you." She bade him a hurried good-night, and ran in, bolting the door behind her. She paced up and down the narrow gangways between the books, laughing and sighing. She stretched forth her arms like a high-priestess at prayer, knocking and bruising her elbows against the shelves. "I sought him whom my soul loveth, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me."