Then it was a blissful sailing over awful abysms, a delirium of the senses, a nebulous ecstasy, a delightful writhing under lacerating blows, an ebb and flow of magnanimous scorn of self and blasphemous prayers.
Laughter came again. Not the old simple laughter that had dominated the play of her spirit until within a short time before. No, this laughter was sardonic exultation, the exultation of the hounded thief, who carries his booty off to security, behind the backs of his pursuers.
Lilly also found reasons for justifying herself.
"I am merely fulfilling my destiny. I am now getting back the possession which fate promised to me and which the old man so long kept from me."
In addition there was a redeeming element in all she did, consecrating the most arrant deception and endowing it with purity. This was the consciousness that he was being saved. Under the spell of a lofty love he would learn to scorn vulgar escapades and, borne on the wings of a woman's expiating favour, he would rise to the heights on which men and heroes dwell.
With these thoughts she drugged her conscience each time; and when he lay in her arms she gave them whispered expression--the doors were not heavy and all sounds must be muffled.
He laughed and kissed the words from her mouth. If she grew uneasy and demanded pledges, he vowed the stars out of the heaven.
Miss von Schwertfeger now never stayed in Lilly's room later than eleven o'clock. This was the hour he might come, and by half past one he had to be gone.
Of course he had to confine his visits to the evenings when the colonel went to town. On account of the time the trains ran, the colonel could not possibly return before two. Besides the carriage could be heard at some distance.
Before Walter left he had to unlock the door to the colonel's room, and smoke a cigarette to rid the atmosphere of the stable and leather smell he brought with him from his own room. For it often happened that the colonel stuck his head in before going to bed; or, if the wine had loosened his tongue, he would even awaken Lilly, seat himself at her bedside, laugh, cast about his dagger glances pick his yellow teeth, and tell the juiciest stories which had arrived fresh from the Berlin centres of obscenity and made the rounds of his club in town.