"If it's a question of shame," something within Lilly cried, "then I ought to feel ashamed now, and of myself."
Forward, undignified, ill-bred--that was what she held herself to be for having begged him to take this morning walk.
Yet there had been nothing evil in the thing! Where had the evil suddenly come from?
The chimes were still making music, the sun was still weaving its net of gold about her. She saw nothing, she heard nothing, so very ashamed she was. She wanted to run away, but did not dare even to stir.
As for him he no longer looked as if he needed comforting. His manner expressed the quiet satisfaction a man feels with a piece of work just completed.
A blackberry had remained sticking in a crevice in the seat of the bench.
"One mustn't get spots on one's clothes," he admonished, and stuck the berry in his mouth, slowly crunching the seeds between his teeth.
Lilly pulled herself together, and caught up her work-bag.
"What are you carrying there?" he asked. "It looks so heavy."
"If only I could change his mind," she thought, "so that he would have a favorable opinion of me again."
Nothing better occurred to her than to stoop at the wayside and pluck the finest field flowers she could reach to offer to him as a farewell gift instead of that other gift, the mere thought of which made her feel like a goose.
She handed him the bouquet keeping her eyes turned aside. He thanked her with a pretty bow, and twirled the bamboo cane with the silver handle--an heirloom of which he had just come into possession. He swung it boldly about his head, the way future corps students do before making a high carte.
Lilly in her dejection and humiliation was unable to say a word.
"Doesn't an inner voice," he asked, "tell you we shall meet some time again?"
She turned her face away. She had all to do to force back the tears welling up in her eyes.
"Then I hope you will receive proof of what unremitting effort and unshakable fidelity to one's convictions can accomplish even with small means."
His voice now sounded full and vibrant with self-satisfied energy. While making her small and timorous he seemed to have sucked up some of her joyous mood.
When they drew near the Altmarkt, however, he became greatly disquieted again, and kept spying about on all sides. Finally he remarked that the streets were getting pretty lively, and it would be better perhaps if they were to part company and go back by different ways.