Among others was an extremely thin little shrewmouse, dainty and devilish, with steely eyes and thin pinched lips turning inward. She always wore white silk, and dragged a rustling, fan-shaped train. She called herself Mrs. Karla. Nobody knew her real name except her lover, a mere boy, the son of a manufacturer. Pale, puny, and completely in her toils, he followed her about until dawn indulging her in her sapping lust for pleasure. In an unguarded moment he revealed that she was the wife of a Jewish scholar who lived in absolute seclusion, and actually believed that she was occupied in satisfying the social demands of the Berlin West Side. And while she wantoned with all sorts of people in music halls and _chambres separées_, her husband sat quietly at home poring over his statistical tables. There were women of every description, for whose past and whose means of subsistence no one concerned himself, provided they were pretty and elegant and not exactly _cocottes_. In addition to the ladies' legitimate escorts were a large number of gentlemen, who came every evening to fish in troubled waters. These gentlemen constituted the real enlivening element, and among them was the Dr. Salmoni who had wielded "the big stick" at Mr. Kellermann's carnival while smiling a mournful smile. In his company, Lilly felt, she always grew embarrassed and reticent, although it seemed to her a secret bond united them. As at the carnival, he exercised his caustic wit upon every person who crossed his path, with the exception of herself, whom he passed by considerately. Now and then he dissected her with his probing eyes, and two or three times he whispered softly _en passant_: "What are you seeking to find here, lovely lady?" Mr. Kellermann, too, presented himself not infrequently; grew befuddled, and then threw out remarks about "a chained beauty crying to be set free," remarks which Lilly assiduously endeavoured not to hear. At the end of the evening he usually discovered he was out of pocket, upon which Richard came to his rescue. Such was the world in which from now on Lilly's days--and nights--glided along. She received mysterious messages of all sorts; invitations from strange gentlemen to discreet rendezvous, flowers sent anonymously, from modest bouquets of violets to gorgeous baskets of orchids, visits from ladies of suspicious character, who were organising private charity circles, and with highly significant smiles asked Lilly to join--a turbid surf of desire forever rolling up to her threshold. At first it frightened her; finally she took no notice of it. * * * * * Spring came, and with it the races at which everybody appears who lays claim for any reason at all to membership in the world of elegance.