"Not that I know of. Her husband isn't a nobleman. But maybe she herself is of noble extraction." Lilly heaved a little sigh, recalling her ivory toilet articles and her underwear embroidered with a coronet lying in Mrs. Laue's musty drawers. How well they would suit a place like this! She rapturously breathed in the delicate lilac perfume which penetrated the entire room like the aroma of an aristocratic spring, and shuddered as she compared it with the poor-people's odour that was invading her Dresden treasures with deadly certainty, no matter how persistently she aired them. "Happy creature!" she said softly. It struck Lilly as peculiar that no traces were to be seen of the life and activity of the mistress of the place, not a silk ribbon, no matinée, or nightgown, not a bit of underwear. "She probably locked everything away, or took everything with her," said Mr. Dehnicke. They returned to the dining-room, and through the other door on the left entered a small drawing-room at the corner of the house. It was flooded with sunlight. Lilly clasped her hands rapturously. She looked at the delicate old rose carpet with a pattern of vaguely outlined vines, at the dear little crystal chandelier, whose prisms radiated all the colours of the rainbow, at the dark reddish mahogany furniture with bronze statuettes on the dainty tables--a woman about to dive into water with outstretched arms, a reaper folding his hands in prayer at the sound of the Angelus, and similar subjects. There was a little bookcase, a lady's secrétaire, paintings on the walls, and even an upright piano. "A piano!" sighed Lilly closing her eyes in mournful bliss. There were animate objects, too. In front of one of the three windows stood an aquarium with a broad-leaved palm rising over it, and the sunlight gleaming on the water and the gold fish. A canary bird chirped at them from another window. Lilly recalled her light blue realm. In comparison how plain and compact all this was--like a bird's nest--yet how inconceivably charming when contrasted with the horror she now dwelt in. "Why, it's a veritable paradise!" she said gaily, though tears were rising in her eyes. "Here is one more room," said Mr. Dehnicke, opening a door which Lilly had failed to notice. "It has a separate entrance from the hall of the house. The lady probably uses it as a guest room, or something like that. If you were living here, it would do admirably for a place for your assistants to work in." Lilly looked in. The room was more simply furnished than the others, though not without care. In the middle of the floor stood a wide table with greenish grey upholstered chairs standing about it, and in a corner was a comfortable iron bed. "If you had it, of course, the bed would have to be removed," explained Mr. Dehnicke. It was really remarkable how well the apartment suited her purposes.