"To begin with, have I ever done anything to bring about a meeting between you and that young man?" "No; when could you?" "That's just what I am asking." "It was quite the contrary, for you wouldn't even consent at first to my having the riding lessons." "And when I did consent, have I allowed them to take place without supervision?" "Without supervision?" echoed Lilly. "No, I should think not, indeed. You were nearly always there from start to finish." "Was it I who proposed your riding about the open country with him alone?" "You? Why, of course not. The first time we went without leave, and afterwards it was the colonel who wished it." "Lastly, have I or have I not taken care to watch that everything was right in your room?" "I am not sure, but I think so. You used, anyhow, to come in the last thing to say 'Good-night.'" "Have you taken me for your enemy--your jailer?" "Not exactly ... but I thought you didn't really care much about me." Anna laughed a hard, cheerless laugh. "Your utterances are very valuable," she said. "It proves to me that I haven't blundered in carrying through my scheme, and that I have nothing to reproach myself with." "What scheme?" asked Lilly, quite at sea. Fraeulein von Schwertfeger measured her with a glance of pitying scorn. "I knew everything, child, from the very beginning. The first moment you met him here I saw what was coming. I could reckon it all up as I do the cost of dinner. I just let things go as they were bound to go. I could do it without lowering myself in my own self-esteem. Besides, what end would have been served by interfering? You were simply bent on rushing headlong to your ruin." "What have I ever done," faltered Lilly, "that you should hate me so? I have never tried to upset your position in the house. I submitted to you from the first moment I arrived. I put myself entirely in your hands and now you treat me like this!" "My dear, if I had hated you," replied Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, "you would not be here now. You would probably at this very minute be wandering on the high-road. A dozen times or more I might have crushed you like dust in the palm of my hand, and I haven't done it. But I'll be honest.... Yes, I did hate you--that is to say, before I knew you. I pictured you a little pert, designing minx, who had drawn the colonel on, out of mercenary motives, to resort to that extreme measure which is the last resource of old libertines when they are thwarted. But when you came and I saw what you were, a dear, ingenuous child, without suspicion of evil, full of good intentions towards him and myself, I had to pocket my hate. Then you became to me nothing more than a harmless little pet dog that one uses so long as it is any pleasure to one and then kicks aside. I have done with you, my dear child, long ago. You're not in it. I and the colonel alone are playing the game. I have to reckon with him now, and then my work is over."