She made a little grimace at him.

"Let it be now, then," she suggested, leaning across the table. "We will
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