He raised his hand to his cap in careless salute without taking it off. "Colonel von Mertzbach," he said in a voice the harsh sound of which suggested unlimited authority and power. "I must speak to you for a few minutes, my Fraeulein. There are reasons that compel me to make your acquaintance." Lilly felt that she was to be subjected to a humiliating cross-examination, which she was not in the least bound to tolerate. But never in her life had she seemed to herself so utterly defenceless as at this moment. She was standing before a judge who had taken on himself the right to pardon or condemn her according to his pleasure. She murmured something like consent with trembling lips. "You appear to be a most dangerous young woman," he said. "You have turned the heads of all my staff; that is to say, the juniors among them. They are simply crazy about you." "I don't understand your meaning," answered Lilly, gathering courage as well as she could. "Humph!" he ejaculated, and glued his eyeglass into his eye, to look her up and down as far as the point where her figure was cut in two by the counter. "Humph!" he repeated. Then he continued: "In these cases it is easy enough to play the innocent. Nevertheless, I can fully sympathise with my young men. In their place I should probably have done the same. But it looks, Fraeulein, as if, in spite of your youth and inexperience, you have a fair share of feminine wiles at your command, otherwise you would scarcely have drawn these somewhat fastidious young men here so often with that immaculately reserved manner of yours; but, after all, perhaps it's the manner that's done it." Tears rose to Lilly's eyes. She could easily have flung back his insults, but the man's personality mastered her. She searched in vain for words to oppose him; his piercing eyes seemed to go through and through her and deprive her of speech; his cynical smile held her in thrall. So she merely sat down and cried. He on his side rose and came nearer the counter. "How much you have reason to feel hurt, Fraeulein, in your _amour propre_, I cannot say. It's not my intention to make you cry. On the contrary, I want you as calmly as possible to give me a little information about yourself. It may be of importance to your future." Lilly felt the necessity of pulling herself together, because this man desired it. She wiped her eyes and looked at him penitently, sniffling a little as she used to do when a child after being scolded. He inquired her name, her antecedents, whether she had a father and a mother, what school she had been at, and what she was doing there. On her mentioning her guardian's name a mocking smile flitted over his face. "I am acquainted with that gentleman's philosophy of life," he said. "You are, then, utterly alone in the world?" Lilly said "Yes." "And you would not object to have a helping-hand extended to you by someone to whom you could turn in time of trouble?"