A wave of the hand and Wentz disappeared, while Lindberg, the lame man, entered with the chocolate. The General had the tray put upon the table before her and asked her to serve it, standing erect and watching her with open admiration. Doris was frightened, for she had already seen the power that this old man possessed. But with an effort she found her composure and made up her mind that if she was alarmed von Stromberg at least should not be aware of it. The safest defense against such a man was audacity. “You were feeling ill,” he said, suavely sympathetic. “The long morning in the train and the strain of your ordeal. It is but natural. A little cup of chocolate and a biscuit should revive you wonderfully. _Nicht wahr?_” His English, though excellent, had a slight German accent and his tone the quality of a lullaby, “It is very good,” said Doris. “I have often heard it said that nowhere in the world is chocolate so excellent as in Germany.” “I trust that you may find it so. There are many things beside chocolate that are excellent in Germany, Fräulein Mather.” “I am sure that must be true,” she said politely, touching the cup to her lips. “Then why do you dislike us so much?” he asked with a smile. “It is not your people that I dislike so much, General von Stromberg. Many of the most charming people I have ever known have been Germans. It is not what you are, but what you want to be, that I dislike; not your habits or your tastes, but your intolerance of any civilization which happens to differ from yours.” She paused, a little frightened at her temerity, but von Stromberg still smiled. “Go on,” he chuckled, “you speak very prettily.” “I am an American, General von Stromberg, from the United States, where people are accustomed to speak what they feel, without fear of _lèse majesté_. If the President of the United States did something that I didn’t like I would write him a letter.” “And would he answer it?” he purred. “If he had time, yes. If anyone wrote such a letter to your Emperor, he would be boiled in oil.” Von Stromberg roared with delight. “Boiled in oil!” he repeated. “Yes--or perhaps some more exquisite cruelty that your ingenious people have devised,” she said coolly. “To prosaic minds like mine, Excellenz, you Germans are the wonders of the age. You are both godlike and Saturnian; a nation of military fanatics, a nation of silly sentimentalists; a nation trained to scientific brutality, which shares the sorrows of the dying rose. Which is it that you want us to think you, the god or the satyr?” “We know that we are the god,” he said, showing his teeth, “but we want you to think us the satyr.”