He hastened to her, frightened; leaned over her, and wanted to stroke her hands. But she shook him off. Since he could not find a word in justification of his weak evasion, he took up the thread where Lilly's tortured laugh had cut it off. "Remember one thing, dearest, dearest friend. I don't want anything for myself--no reward--nothing. Long ago I gave up all wishes for myself, I swear to you. The only thing I wanted was to draw you out of the hole where you were being degraded into a proletarian. Oh, I know it from experience. It lasts a few years--no more. They either go on the street, or they grow more careworn and uglier and uglier. Soon you'd never suspect what they once were. To keep the same thing from happening to you, I thought of that device of the check, and wrote to my American agents. When I saw you were completely taken in, I didn't sleep for several nights out of pure joy, because then I knew I shouldn't have to stand by and see you go to your ruin." "Why should I go to ruin?" Lilly interjected. "By the time your check came I had already earned a decent little sum. You yourself helped me, and you yourself said, if I continued the same way--" She stopped short in fright at the thought that if she had to separate from him, this one avenue would be cut off, too. The idea was a nightmare. No word of encouragement came from him. He kept plucking at the tablecloth in dogged reserve. "Say something! Have you already forgotten everything you did for me?" He raised his head. "Well," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "if you insist. At any rate, it may be well to be perfectly frank this evening." "Why, what else is there?" Lilly cried. "Do you remember when you visited the factory, I wouldn't let you into the storeroom?" "Certainly. But what--" "And afterwards I said it was because the room wasn't heated?" "Yes--but I can't see what that has to do with my work." "If you had gone the least little bit further, you would have seen every one of your transparencies, fifty-six in all. The last were still unwrapped." Lilly looked up at him as to her executioner. Then she fell down before the sofa. She had no more tears to shed, but the soft darkness of the cushions was soothing to her eyes. To see nothing more, to hear nothing more, to think nothing more. To die quickly, forthwith, before hunger came, and shame. A long silence followed. She thought he had already gone when she felt his hand stroking her shoulder and heard his voice with a mournful quiver in it pleading: