"Do you know, my much-respected and learned young lady, I am not exactly at home in German literature and the other sciences, but since yesterday evening I have been fired with a fabulous, positively student-like thirst for culture. Now, if you would give me your valuable assistance----" He stopped suddenly, stuck an eyeglass in his eye, looked her up and down, first from the left side, then from the right, as one judges the points of a high-stepping horse before purchase; then he murmured, "Damn!" and asked her to light up. There was no reason why Lilly should not obey, as it was so dark she couldn't read the numbers on the backs of the books. As she stretched up to lift the shade from the hanging lamp, disclosing the splendour of her outline, he said "Damn" a second time. When the light shone on her and she looked at him with a questioning shyness in her enigmatic eyes--those "Lilly eyes," whose brilliancy had so long been under eclipse--he sank, quite overcome, on to the chair set for customers, folded his hands and asked to be forgiven. A hot feeling of resentment burned in Lilly: so contemptible was her position in the eyes of this young aristocrat--the first who had found his way here during a year and a half--that she was not deemed worthy of being treated with ordinary courtesy. "Unless you wish to borrow a book, sir," she said with a lofty air, "I must ask you to leave this room." "A book? What?" he repeated, outraged. "One solitary book, one beastly book? No, thank you. Every five minutes I am allowed to stay here, I will take out new books, a whole shelf--a whole case of books, if you like; but on condition that I may return them to-morrow. I will make a contract with a van proprietor to cart the cases of books backwards and forwards. But wait a moment! Haven't you to plank down a three mark deposit if you take out a book?" Lilly, with a stare of astonishment, said "Yes." "Well, as I don't happen to have that amount with me just now, you must keep me as a deposit. You see, I give myself up as a sort of prisoner. Awkward for both of us--eh? But what's to be done?" Lilly could not help being amused, in spite of herself. She laughed out loud. "Ah! now she has forgiven me!" he exclaimed in triumph. "Her gracious young majesty smiles on me. Now let us chat together like real friends. Just look at me a moment, my Fraeulein. Do I appear to you like a fellow who reads much? The only books I care about are Schlicht's, Roda-Roda's, and Winterfeld's authors who are supposed to know the humours of military life. My object in coming here is not books. May I take you into my confidence?" "If you must, yes," stammered Lilly, her eyes dazzled by the glint of gold from under the sleeve of his tan overcoat. It was a revelation to her that men wore gold bangles.