How happy he was, he said, that she had at last granted him permission--he hadn't wished to appear intrusive--he would have waited even longer had not her note removed all his doubts. He repeated everything he had said in his letter with nervous precipitation, which did not harmonise with his elegant appearance or his usual frosty manner.
Lilly thanked him amiably for all he had done for her, regretted having caused him the inconvenience of coming to see her, and all the while felt that with each word she was falling back more and more into the rôle of the "general's wife"--partly against her will--who does the honours in her drawing-room with courteous condescension.
Gradually she turned the conversation in "by-the-ways" to her art. She said she was sorry she was so incompetent, and pointed to the transparencies at the windows.
Mr. Dehnicke jumped up. He was silent for a while, then burst into exclamations of enthusiasm, for each of which he had to take a fresh start, as it were, reiterating his praises with a certain business-like monotony of tone, and smiling in an embarrassed way.
Lilly was far too delighted to suspect the tone of his criticism.
"Have you shown them to Mr. Kellermann?" asked Mr. Dehnicke.
Lilly confessed to her lack of courage. "Besides," she added, "I felt I ought to show them to you first."
He looked at her gratefully and worshipfully, and said:
"If you haven't done so yet, I advise you to refrain from ever showing them to him. Despite his apparent willingness, the man is obsessed by inordinate professional conceit, and it might be--"
Lilly plucked up her courage, and asked, as if it were a matter of only slight importance, whether he thought anyone would buy her work.
Mr. Dehnicke became silent again, and with his index finger scratched at the left side of his upper lip under his moustache. Then he inclined his smooth, round head still more to the left, and said weighing each word:
"It would be best if you were to entrust the sale of your transparencies to me. I have certain connections and I know the character of the buyers. If I set the glass in bronze frames, or something of the sort, I might even dispose of them as goods of my own."
"Oh, will you?" she cried, grasping his hand. "At least until I have found customers for myself?"