"Colonel von Mertzbach," he said in a voice whose rough intonations spread a whole world of authoritative power before her. "I should like to speak to you a few minutes. I have reasons for wishing to know you."
Lilly felt she was to be subjected to a humiliating examination, which she was by no means in duty bound to suffer. But never in her life had she seemed so defenceless as at that moment. She felt as if she were standing in the presence of a judge who had the right to pardon or condemn entirely at his own discretion.
Her lips trembled as she stammered something meant to express consent.
"You seem to be an extremely dangerous young woman," he said. "Why, you've fairly crazed my men, especially the younger ones—there's no managing them."
"I don't understand," replied Lilly, summoning all her courage.
He uttered "h'm," stuck a monocle in his eye, and looked her up and down, or rather looked down to the point where the top of the counter cut her figure off. Then he uttered another "h'm," and observed:
"It's very easy to play the innocent in cases like this. However that may be, I can thoroughly comprehend my young men. Probably I myself should not have behaved differently. But it seems that despite your youth and—inexperience, you possess a very respectable amount of feminine cunning, otherwise you would not have succeeded, in spite of your irreproachably reserved manner—or, perhaps, just because of your manner—you would not have succeeded, I say, in bringing the young men here on repeated visits—they are somewhat fastidious."
Lilly felt the tears rising. It would have been easy to repudiate the insults he offered her; but from where derive the strength to oppose a word in defence to this man whose eyes disrobed her and drilled her through and through, whose smile held her in a wire net?
So she sat down and cried.
He, in his turn, rose from his seat and stepped close to the counter.
"How deeply your sense of honour has been wounded I cannot say offhand. At any rate, it is not my intention to make you cry. On the contrary, I should like you to give me with the utmost composure possible a little information which will enlighten me and which may be of some importance for your future."
Lilly was conscious of only one thought: "You must pull yourself together because he wants you to."
She wiped her eyes and looked at him obediently, sniffling a little, as when she had been scolded in her childhood.
He asked her name, where she had been born, where her parents were, what school she had attended, and what she was doing in the library. At the mention of her guardian's name an ironic smile passed over his face.
"I know the gentleman's views," he said. "So, in short, you have been left absolutely alone in the world?"
Lilly assented.
"And it would not be disagreeable to you to have some mainstay—to know someone to whom you could turn in moments of need?"
"Where is a person like that to come from?"
"Let me think it over at leisure," he said, wrinkling his forehead. "In any case, you cannot remain in this hole. Do they treat you well here at least?"
"Oh, tolerably," said Lilly, and added between laughter and tears, "Only—the food is bad and sometimes I get—" she was going to say "beaten," but was ashamed to, and substituted "punished," which was a perversion of the truth.
The colonel burst into a laugh that sounded like the crack of a whip.
"Very commendable in you to take the matter humorously," he said, and rose to go. "Well, I know what I wanted to know. My men may continue to come to you—in uniform, in civilian's clothes, whichever way they want. They will find no more irreproachable company among the young ladies of this town. Should they ever forget their manners, just drop me a line. But I am sure they won't. Good afternoon, Miss Czepanek."
Lilly watched him walk across the porch with the jerky, springy strut of an old cavalry man. The wintry sun seemed to be shining for the sole purpose of casting a dancing radiance about his figure.
When he reached the pavement he turned to her window and lifted his cap slightly but respectfully. The eyes behind the lowering brows pierced hers, searching, almost threatening. Then he passed out of sight.
Lilly's soul was assailed by a tumult of questions:
"What was it? What was expected of her? Why wasn't she let alone?"
She wanted to cry, wanted to pour out complaints and feel herself pitied. But her trouble had a certain festal tinge, a certain shadowyness and unreality. She bedizened herself with it as with a new hope, and what he had said about some one to whom she could turn in moments of need re-echoed in her soul like a soothing, easing melody. Didn't it seem almost as if he himself wished to be the mainstay so sorely lacking in her floundering young life?
Perhaps he would get Mr. Pieper, who did not concern himself about her at any rate, to give up his guardianship over Lilly. Or, perhaps the colonel might even adopt her, or something like that. There was no knowing.
If only there had not been those dagger eyes, that amused laugh, and that evil, evil look at the end, and above all her friend's warning: "If ever he should find his way to you, then may the Lord have mercy on you!"
However, for all that, what could possibly happen to her behind the counter? Nobody had ever dared to raise the drop leaf and pass through. And surely she was safe behind the bookcase L to N, where she could not even be seen.
The colonel's visit seemed to have acted like a cold douche on his men, despite—or, perhaps, on account of—the guarantee he had given for their good behaviour. Not one of them came to visit her again.
"Is that a sign of the protection he is to favour me with?" Lilly wondered.
Something was missing, she did not know what.
A week passed, and one day the younger sister, who held watch every morning for possible billets-doux, threw an envelope at Lilly's feet, saying:
"Something else again, with a coronet on it, you flirt, you!"
"Flirt" was one of the milder titles of honour that the sisters lavished upon her.
Lilly opened the letter and read:
"My dear Miss Czepanek:—
Remembering the interview that took place between us recently, I take the liberty of making a proposition to you. The position of private secretary and reader with me is open. Would you be inclined to accept it? Since I am an unmarried man, it would be in better form for you not to live in my house, but I pledge myself to provide for your maintenance in a suitable and respectable family. Your guardian, whom I took the opportunity to consult in the matter, has given his consent to the plan.
—Respectfully yours,
Freiherr von Mertzbach,
Colonel and Commander of the——Regiment of Ulans."
So here it was—her fate!
It was there, on the other side of the gleaming snowy street, beckoning and calling to her:
"Come out of your hole. I will show you life. I will show you something new."
But then she pictured herself sitting at the colonel's great desk writing at his dictation. She saw his eyes drilling her, searching her soul, and threatening, always threatening. The pen would fall from her fingers, she would have to jump up and run away, but she would not be able to; the eyes would hold her in a spell.
So Lilly sat down and wrote a very correct letter declining his proposition. She fully appreciated, she said, the honour he did her, but she felt she was not qualified to assume so difficult a position, and she thought that even if she was not so well off she did better by remaining in her modest situation, since she could fulfil the