After having inspected her treasures to her heart's content, Lilly prepared to extend her expedition of conquest to outlying districts.
The room in which she was had only one window, or, rather, a glass door, leading to a balcony, on which there was a rocking chair, and the high railing of which was partly overgrown with young creepers. Later in the season, when the leaves had unfolded all the way, a person standing on the balcony would be completely screened by walls of green; but now, in early spring, there was still so much space between the shoots that he might easily be seen from below.
Lilly softly opened the casement door and slipped out into the open air.
To the left, rising above a wall, were the barns and stables, which formed a large quadrangle about the yard. To the right, giant trees, a chaos of mazy, moss-green branches set with the golden-green buttons of the leaf buds. Inside the labyrinth the birds kept up a scandalous riot, which deafened one's ears as with a hail-storm of sounds. Straight ahead, about thirty paces away, rose the gable roof of an ancient one-story structure, which also bordered on the park wall and seemed to open in front on the yard.
There at last a few mortals were to be seen. Two gentlemen, one with a round grey beard, the other stout, middle-aged and copper-coloured, were walking up and down the lawn at the back of the house smoking and conversing, while a third--
The slim, sinewy young man with the high collar and light yellow gaiters, sitting at a window, pulling a red dog to his lap by a thin chain, that was--no, impossible!--yes, it was--it actually was--Walter von Prell!
It was her merry friend, who had, so to speak, slunk off around the corner, the little lieutenant, famed as one utterly devoid of moral fibre--the only man that had ever kissed her mouth.
Except the colonel, of course; but the colonel didn't count.
There were the silvery white lids and the clinking bracelet and the mute laugh, which shook him like a storm each time the red dog with the pointed ears fell from his knees. The only change in him was that the close-cropped, velvety head of hair had been replaced by a somewhat unkempt growth shining with pomade.
Lilly laughed aloud and stretched her arms to him.