"You have no conception, my child, how essential it is, when you live in harness with another human being, not to lose touch with yourself. To hold a private court of your own flattering thoughts is an excellent diversion. Anyone who wants to eat fresh eggs must keep poultry; never forget that. But don't let anyone suspect. Display no unnecessary opposition, no obstinacy. You must arrange to run your life from the start on double paths, so that you can travel in both directions as your needs require. I shouldn't wonder if in these circumstances your marriage were to turn out happily, apart from its exceptional worldly advantages, the duration of which depend mainly on good luck and the exercise of tact and powers of adaptation. I shall send you the marriage contract sealed. Till your coming of age in two years' time I shall always be at your service. If you feel in after years that your temper is permanently tried, break the seal by all means. A good lawyer can interpret a contract very differently from a layman, and read all sorts of things into it. As I indicated, there is one case in which he is impotent to do this. Be on your guard against it. Technically, it is called _in flagrante_.... Sometime or other you will doubtless acquire information as to what the word means. Now, may I give the colonel your final consent?" CHAPTER XIII The train rumbled on through the night, showers of sparks flew up from the engine. When it was fed by the stoker, clouds of fire illuminated the darkness, and you saw in a flash purple pines, snow-covered gables, and wide-stretching golden spaces appearing out of black nothingness. How beautiful, how strange it all was! Lilly leaned her head, drowsy from champagne, against the red velvet cushions. It was over, and everything had gone off well. A kaleidoscope of confused pictures, half real, half imaginary, whirled through her brain. She saw a great black inkstand with a small grey-bearded man behind it asking lots of useless questions; a white lace veil with myrtle-leaves attached thrown over her head by the adjutant's wife, who went from one rapture into another; a hateful Protestant minister, with two ridiculous white bibs under his chin. He looked like a grave-digger, but at the end he gave such an exquisite address that Lilly would have liked to cry on his bosom. Two gentlemen in black, two in gay uniforms. One of the gentlemen in black was Herr Pieper, one of those in uniform the colonel. And she was the colonel's wife the colonel's wife! How the wheels seemed to murmur the words: "Colonel's wife!" But if you listened more attentively they also said--what the gentlemen at the wedding had said--"Most gracious baroness; most gracious baroness," always in time.