“Is that your picture?—A wonderful likeness.”

“That is my mother’s portrait.”

“Ah! such a resemblance!... And have you lost your mother also? So you are absolutely an orphan, quite alone?”

“Quite alone.”

“But you have some relatives?”

Franka shook her head.

“Then you have some protector? Perhaps a sweetheart?”

“No, no one.”

“It does not seem possible that when one is so beautiful, there has not been some love-affair....”

A shade of annoyance flew over Franka’s face: “Sir, you desired to speak to me of my father....”