leave my sort of serious things for another time. I am quite certain
that I know where your sort is going to lead us. You are going to make
love to me."

"Do you mind?" he asked earnestly.

She became suddenly grave.

"Not yet," she begged. "Let us talk and live nonsense for a few more
weeks. You see, I really have not known you very long, have I, and this
is a very dangerous city for flirtations. At Court one has to be so
careful, and you know I am already considered far too much of a Bohemian
here. I was even given to understand, a little time ago, by a very great
lady, that my position was quite precarious."

"Does that--does anything matter if--"

"It is not of myself alone that I am thinking. Everything matters to one
in your profession," she reminded him pointedly.

"I believe," he exclaimed, "that you think more of my profession than you
do of me!"

"Quite impossible," she retorted mockingly. "And yet, as I dare say you
have already realised, it is not only the things you say to our statesmen
here, and the reports you make, which count. It is your daily life among
the people of the nation to which you are attached, the friends you make
among them, the hospitality you accept and offer, which has all the time
its subtle significance. Now I am not sure, even, that I am, a very good
companion for you, Mr. Francis Norgate."

"You are a very bad one for my peace of mind," he assured her.

She shook her head. "You say those things much too glibly," she declared.
"I am afraid that you have served a very long apprenticeship."

"If I have," he replied, leaning a little across the table, "it has been
an apprenticeship only, a probationary period during which one struggles
towards the real thing."

"You think you will know when you have found it?" she murmured.

He drew a little breath. His voice even trembled as he answered her. "I
know now," he said softly.

Their heads were almost touching. Suddenly she drew apart. He glanced at
her in some surprise, conscious of an extraordinary change in her face,
of the half-uttered exclamation strangled upon her lips. He turned his
head and followed the direction of her eyes. Three young men in the
uniform of officers had entered the room, and stood there as though
looking about for a table. Before them the little company of head-waiters
had almost prostrated themselves. The manager, summoned in breathless
haste, had made a reverential approach.

"Who are these youn