Suddenly she felt herself sinking. The red border mounted to the ceiling, bees buzzed about her ears--then nothing. When she came to, something cold and wet was lying on her breast, and a woman's clothes smelling of smoke grazed her cheek. The green twilight was still there. A breastplate was hanging in front of her. It looked like a brightly scoured kettle. She did not dare move, she felt so comfortable and easy. A rough, bony hand kept chafing her forehead and a kindly voice repeated two or three times in succession: "Poor little thing! Poor little thing! So young!" After a time Lilly could not help giving a sign of consciousness, and the instant she stirred a sure arm came to the support of her head, and the kindly voice asked, was she feeling better and did she want anything? "I want to go home." "Not so easily done," said the voice, "because he gave orders that he wanted to speak to you again. But if you'll take a good piece of advice, say 'much obliged,' and 'good-by,' and be off as quickly as you can. This is no sort of place for a poor young girl like you." Lilly sat up, and pulled down her waist. The cook was standing beside her--a brown, furrowed, thick-lipped face. Stroking Lilly's shoulder she asked if she should bring her something to strengthen her heart, a cordial beaten up with the white of an egg, or something else. "I want to go home." "You shall, pretty soon, my dear. But I must call him in first." She hustled out of the room. Lilly reached for her hat, on which she must have been lying, because it was completely crushed and misshapen. "Now I must certainly get a new one," she thought, and tried to reckon how much she could spare for it. The door opened. He entered, followed by the cook. Lilly was no longer afraid. Everything seemed far, far away. Even he. Nothing seemed to concern her any more. "I think she's fit to be taken to the cab already," said the cook. "You are no longer needed here," he said imperiously. The cook ventured to stammer another suggestion. "Get out!" he thundered. With that she was outside the door. Lilly experienced merely a lazy sensation of being startled. "Nevertheless, I'm curious to know what he means to do with me now," she thought. But her interest in her own fate was not great. He walked up and down with a heavy tread. The silver spurs on his heels jingled. "We'll have some light," he said. "The subject we're now to discuss requires clearness." He summoned the lackey who had smiled the furtive, cunning smile. The lackey lit the gas jets of the chandelier, and on leaving the room gave Lilly a glance of wildly eager curiosity, this time without a smile. Lilly still sat on the couch on which she had come back to consciousness, twirling her old hat without a thought in her brain. In the full light of the chandelier she saw the colonel in all his resplendence still pacing silently up and down. Lilly could look him in the face without a flutter.