In a blaze of hatred, I told myself that if ever the brute could be seen rampant in human beings' faces there it was, rampant, uncontrolled, unashamed, only just escaping from being degraded by the accompanying expressions of burning arrogance, and indomitable determination that blazed out of those hundreds of blue Teutonic eyes. The set of their lips was firm and grim beyond all words. Often a peculiar ironic smirk, caused by the upturning of the corners of their otherwise straight lips, seemed to add to their demoniac suggestiveness. But their physique was magnificent, and there was not a man among them who did not look every inch a soldier, from his iron-heeled blucher boots upwards. As I studied them, drinking in the unforgettable picture, it gave me a certain amount of satisfaction to know that I was setting my own small womanly daring up against that great mass of unbridled cruelty and conceit, and I sat very still, very still indeed, stiller than any mouse, allowing myself the supreme luxury of a contemptuous curl of my lips. Picture after picture of the ruined cities I had seen in Belgium flashed like lightning over my memory out there on the sunny Brabant hillside. Again I saw before me the horrors that I had seen with my own eyes at Aerschot, Termonde, and Louvain, and then, instead of feeling frightened I experienced nothing but a red-hot scorn that entirely lifted me above the terrible stress of the encounter; and whether I lived or died mattered not the least bit in the world, beside the satisfaction of sitting there, an English subject looking down at the German Army, with that contemptuous curl of my lips, and that blaze of hatred in my heart. Meanwhile our driver's passport with his photograph was being examined. "Who is this?" shouted the silly old German Colonel, pointing to the photograph. "C'est moi," replied the driver, and his expression seemed to say, "Who on earth did you think it was?" The fat Colonel, who obviously did not understand a word of French, kept roaring away for one "Schultz," who seemed to be some distance off. The roaring and shouting went on for several minutes. It was a curious manifestation of German lack of dignity and I tried in vain to imagine an English Colonel roaring at his men like that. Then "Schultz" came galloping up. He acted as interpreter, and an amusing dialogue went on between the roaring Colonel and the young dashing "Baverois," who was obviously a less brutal type than his interrogator. The old banker from Brussels was next questioned, and his passport to come in and out of Brussels being correctly made out in German and French, the Germans seized upon Jean and demanded what he was doing there, why he was going to Brussels, and why he had been to Grammont. Jean's answer was that he lived in Brussels and had been to Grammont to see his relations, and "Schultz's" explanations rendered this so convincing that the lawyer's passport was handed back to him.