She could look him quite calmly in the face now. "It's useless to try and defend myself," she thought, "so I don't care what he does." Next he seized a chair and planted it in front of her, so close that when he sat down his knees nearly touched hers. "Listen to me, child," he began, his words ringing out clear and incisive, like words of command. "While you lay here in your swoon I was thinking over in the next room very earnestly what's to be done. I came to a decision about your future; but of that later. You, of course, must have observed by this time that my sentiments with regard to you are not exactly paternal. The older I grow the less am I able to understand what so-called paternal feelings are. To cut the matter short, I have conceived a passion for you which astonishes myself.... If I were ten years older--I am fifty-four--I should attribute it to senility. Do you know what that means?" Lilly shook her head. She could see his face now so clearly that to her dying day she could never have forgotten what it was like. His eyes flamed in their red sockets and pierced her with the rapier-like sharpness that had at first filled her with terror. In grey bristling strands his hair was brushed back from the temples; but his moustache, on the other hand, was coal-black, and shadowed his gloomy mouth like a patch of ink through which his teeth made a white line of demarcation. From the corners of his mouth the heavy folds of flesh descended into the collar of his uniform. "How funny it is," reflected Lilly, "that I am doomed to be the love of this bad old man!" Well, if it was his will, she was powerless to resist. "The world could tell you that I am reputed to be, in spite of my years, a subduer of women; it may be because I have never had much respect for them. But now comes a case which ... how shall I express it? ... a case that is somewhat unique. I have decided that before the old year dies I must make up my mind one way or the other." He looked at the clock. "I have still half an hour to give you, then I am due at a reception. Well, not to waste time, I may as well confess ... my intentions towards you in the first place were not honourable. To say that I wanted to seduce you would hardly be correct, considering how little there can be of a seductive nature about a man of my years. It wouldn't have been here, and not to-day, as I gave you my word of honour in my letter; but you would have been mine sooner or later, of that you may rest assured." "I've no doubt of it," thought Lilly, who listened as calmly as if she were reading an exciting novel. Still, her old horror of him did not return; and still she waited with dull curiosity to see what would happen next.