"A fine state of affairs," she cried, turning her head jerkily from Richard to Lilly and back to Richard. "I'm not secure even in my own home. I beg of you, Richard, do not expose me to another meeting with a person of this sort." With an indignant snort she pushed past Lilly, who stood to one side in respectful terror. "What are you doing here? What do you mean by coming here in this way?" Richard had never shouted at her so before. He planted himself squarely in front of her, thrust his hands in his trousers' pockets, and gnawed the ends of his moustache. His head hung on his left shoulder. He looked like a treacherous, butting bull. She wanted to hand him the picture and the letters, tell him everything she had intended to; but her voice failed. Her knees threatened to give way. "I--I--I--" she faltered, and choked. "I--I--I--" he mimicked her. "I--I--I'd like to wriggle myself in here. I--I--I'd like to be mistress here--isn't that so? No, my little angel. This can't go on! It has to stop--at once! I've long had my suspicions of what you call your unhappy love of the factory. Get out of here! Get out of here, I say." Before he had finished Lilly was out. She still held the parcel in a convulsive grip. She reeled as she walked along--past bright red houses, which threatened to fall on her. A truck loaded with flour bags scattered white clouds. A pulley screeched in a factory yard. When someone came toward her, she made a wide détour, keeping to the edge of the pavement. She feared he might grin his contempt at her. A skein of silk thread lay on the pavement. Lilly picked it up, and thought of hanging herself. Something must be done. To be abandoned--very well--if it could not be helped. Each one, when her turn came, would have to resign herself to her fate. But to be chased away--thrown out--like a thief--like the vilest woman of the street--to be shaken off like a disgusting worm, to be spat upon! Something must be done. Anything to take revenge upon him. Even if he was now unsusceptible to her revenge--all the same! He would discover he had been to blame throughout. If she descended into the mire, which had heretofore filled her with horror, if she went to ruin--! Something must be done--any deed of self-degradation which made her fit to be treated in that way and no other--and freed her from those torments--those torments. Her heart hung in her breast like a painful swelling. She could have drawn a line about it, so sharply defined it was against her side. It seemed to be in the clutch of sharp claws. Again those lurking vultures occurred to her, the vultures of Kellermann's picture. They were waiting for Lilly Czepanek. For whom else? Suddenly something flashed and hissed in her brain like a tongue of fire. That was it! That was it! She summoned a cab. On! On! Whither? She ordered the coachman to drive as quickly as possible to Mr. Kellermann's studio.