"People on our level," he had said. Lilly felt flattered that so clever and prominent a man should rank her with him. The next performer was a "minstrel," a mercurial, black young fellow, who accompanied himself on the mandolin. He struck up a highly sentimental ditty, like a troubadour's. The lady's name I will not cite, Far purer she than the moonlight. She is so chaste, she burns with shame To hear the stork called by its name. And if rash Eros bids you try To steal a kiss, however shy, Her face grows pale--Heaven forefend!-- And stammers she: "Now this must end!" The second strophe, the temperature of which rose many degrees, ended with the line: Quoth she: "Now cut it out! Now stop." And the third strophe, whose outrageous explicitness Lilly scarcely ventured to understand, wound up with the French: _Tout ce que vous voulez, mais pas ça._ An endless round of clapping and shouting followed the song. Lilly was astonished, but did not resent it. She resented nothing any more. Leaning back in her chair with half-closed eyes, she let the lights, the sounds, the vulgarities, the laughter and applause pass as in a dream. From time to time she looked around at her friend. He stood behind her, and smiled reassuringly, but said nothing. A mottled red burned on his forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot. Perhaps he had drunk too much champagne. As for herself, though she had taken only a sip, her head was spinning dizzily. At two o'clock the speech-making ended. Now the final restraints were thrust aside. The company romped madly, danced, kissed, drank, quarrelled, and fought duels. Lovers stabbed themselves and were carried out dead. The cannon shot off crackers. A thin, droll youngster clad in a Greek gown, which an obliging model had lent him, stood in front of the "Arbour of the Right to Motherhood," and held forth in a singing falsetto. Science had shown, he said, by the results of artificial fish culture that man as a factor in reproduction would soon be unnecessary. At the entrance to the "Arbour of the Cry for Man" a small, wild person with curly black hair had climbed on a chair and kept screaming "A woman! A woman! A woman!" Into the "Arbour of Perversity" they had pushed the baker and his corpulent better half, and each time the two kissed on command a shout of laughter went up outside. Lilly's head was a-whirl with the tumult. Everything turned in a circle, screeching, darting, hammering, like a series of painful flashes. "We'd better be going," Mr. Dehnicke's voice behind her advised. She arose and stretched her arms with a shiver. _That_ had been life! Life! Life! Then she followed him. Mr. Kellermann had noticed her leave, and furtively slipped up to her in the hall. His open collar hung over his jacket, his cheeks were puffed and shiny. He looked like a young Falstaff.