They returned to the drawing-room. Lilly was struck by something she had not observed before. A long picture in an ornate carved frame hung over the sofa, forming, as it were, the centre about which all the rest of the furnishings were grouped. But the picture itself was concealed beneath a curtain of lavender crape. "What's that?" Lilly asked. Mr. Dehnicke shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the top of the secrétaire, where a photograph, the only ornament there, had the same mysterious veil. Seized with curiosity Lilly tried slightly to raise the lower end of the covering over the large picture. "I wonder whether I may," she queried timidly, as if about to commit a theft. "If you have the courage," he replied, apparently breathing a little more heavily than usual. She tugged--tugged more violently--the crape fell off--and before her hung her friend and betrothed, Walter von Prell! There he stood in the uniform of his former regiment, boldly and carelessly dashed off in crayon. Lilly's knees trembled. Cold shivers ran through her body. She refused to believe, to understand. Then she felt Mr. Dehnicke take her hand and draw her to the outside hall. He lit a match. On the porcelain plate she now read what she had previously been unable to decipher: Lilly Czepanek Pressed Flower Studio She uttered a cry, rushed back into the drawing-room, threw herself in the corner of the sofa, and wept the hot, blissful tears of desire and yearning that had so long been repressed. When she ventured to look up again, she saw Mr. Dehnicke waiting before her, modest and correct, with his sober, serious face. She was ashamed of herself for being so happy; and full of qualms she held her hand out to him gratefully. "May I hope that in my capacity of Walter's representative I have chanced in a measure to satisfy your taste?" There was no more thought of refusing. CHAPTER VI The mottled golden tops of the chestnuts grew paler, the gaps ever wider that the autumn ate into the foliage. Where a soothing green had cut off the view, now glittered the bright wavelets of the canal. Long barges, laboriously pushed by poles, trailed along in their cumbersome fashion, and the shaggy watchdogs barked up at the aristocratic windows. Grey, rainy days came stealing upon the city like an enemy, and loneliness laid its octopus clutch on Lilly's breast. But her work! Yes, she had her work. So long as the first infatuation had lasted and Lilly felt she might hope for some realisation of her plans, she had clung to her work day and night. But the hoped-for turn of events never came. The announcements she had had printed remained unheeded. Mr. Dehnicke, sole purchaser of her goods, begged her--with a hesitating, embarrassed manner, to be sure, yet explicitly enough--not to be hasty, since the general state of the market was dull.