He swallowed the potato soup with tremulous devoutness, leaving the slices of sausage for the last. When his plate was quite dry he spitted them on his fork one at a time, and on conveying each bit to his mouth cast suspicious glances to right and left as if somebody were standing nearby to snatch it away. The roast he received with greater composure. He heaped his plate high without paying the least attention to the maid, who grinned villainously. He drank Richard's good claret in long draughts. A mottled red flecked his cheeks; he laughed and felt he was himself again. At first Lilly had been somewhat depressed; but as he gradually thawed out, she began to hope he might be made to pass muster after all. Then it suddenly occurred to her that now at last an opportunity presented itself for the genuine salvation of a human being, not merely a game of enamoured self-deception as with Walter von Prell. The thought filled her with blissful, confident hope. After the meal they went into the drawing-room. With masterful ease of manner born of the unwonted drink, he promptly seated himself in the rocking chair and tickled the snarling monkey. He sat leaning back in the chair with his legs stretched out. The fringed ends of his trousers slipped into the expanded tops of his boots, exposing the tattered rubber drawing loops. It was an appalling sight. "I'll have to do something," thought Lilly, and cogitated on the best way to help him. As for Mr. Redlich, now that his spirits were in turmoil, he turned his innermost being outward and aired his views of life. Oh, what a display of gall and poison! He had become so embittered by long privation and eternal envy of those who seemed gay, happy, and favoured by fortune, that no values, no attainments, no prosperous undertakings could withstand his onslaught. Everybody was hollow, corrupt and hypocritical. Everything depended on birth, cliqueism, "pull." Success, no matter in what line, was an ineradicable stain. But this time also he said little of his personal experiences. Lilly could not even discover if he was still a student. He acknowledged only one thing, with bitter resentment, that his deepest feelings had been badly damaged in his constant struggle for existence. While he spoke and laughed spasmodically, two lugubrious, sarcastic folds cut a deep semicircle in each emaciated cheek. Lilly dimly recalled that a tendency to those folds had existed in the times long ago. "Oh, you poor, poor fellow!" she thought, and vowed soon to make a man of him again, both outwardly and inwardly. But his visit left her feeling sad and depressed. "After all--am I better off?" she thought. "Where is the confidence in life I used to have? Where is my joy of life? Where is my Song of Songs?" * * * * *