In bed he lit another cigarette, and while she sat on the edge of the bed he amused himself by telling her risque anecdotes, which he described as "his little girl's lullaby." After this, the colonel preferred to take meals regularly in the dining-room. He wished to enjoy to the full the piquant pleasure of seeing his young wife openly admired and unblushingly desired. The value of his property seemed to rise in proportion to the extent that he was envied by others for its possession. And Lilly, for her part, could watch for the intoxicated sensations of that evening to awake in her ever anew. She might under drooping lids see and feel all those young, hot pairs of eyes around her hang burningly on hers, full of hopeless passion and desire; might, accompanied by the sad wail of the violins and the clash of the cymbals, take flight into those Elysian fields whither her road had been barred--she knew not how or why--since her great good fortune had come to her. Never did she dream of permitting herself, even by the quiver of an eyelash, to return any of those ardent glances. The young men who gazed at her were only accessories to the scene, as indispensable as the lights, the band, the flowers, the white tablecloths, and the cigarette smoke which rose to the ceiling in little blue columns. Nevertheless, one day, as she was walking arm-in-arm with her husband in the street, one of those glances shot her through the heart like an arrow. It proceeded from a pair of dark eyes, which even from a distance were fixed on her inquiringly, and flared up as they came nearer into a flash of melancholy fire and recognition. She felt as if she must run after him as he walked on, and ask, "Who are you? Do you belong to me? ... Do you want me to belong to you?" Then she committed the indiscretion of turning round to look at him. It was only for the fraction of a second, but her husband had remarked it, for when she again looked in front of her, she felt his vigilant eye was upon her, full of threatening suspicion. He nodded two or three times as if to say, "So it's come to this already." For the rest of the day he was preoccupied and bad-tempered. The incident was but the first of a series for Lilly. Not that she ever met that identical youth again, though she kept on the lookout for him. He was succeeded by innumerable others. Those she met, from this time, were no longer unsubstantial shadows of a vision she saw as if they were not there. Now, when she beheld a slight youthful figure coming towards them, she wondered what he would be like near, and if he would look at her. And should his aspect please her, and his gaze without being impertinent express admiring astonishment and longing, she would often feel a pang at her heart and say to herself, "You are far more suited to him than to the old man on whose arm you are leaning." And every time it happened she felt very sad.