“You make it very difficult for me to enter into things with you.”
“I have seen you twice, sir,” I answered deliberately. “The first time at the ball the other evening, when you were good enough to scowl at me, and yesterday at the Princess Christina’s house, when your words were a kind of scowl expressed audibly. We Englishmen are not accustomed to read such actions as the preliminaries of a friendship.”
He started at the word Englishmen, and his eyes lighted with swift anger. Obviously he hated everything English; nor did I wish him to make an exception in my case. I think he read as much in my eyes.
“You Englishmen take very queer views of many things,” he answered, after a short pause. “But I thought you were more a Roumanian, and thus a friend of my country?”
“I have the honour to be a Roumanian Count,” I said, tersely.
“Do you wish to quarrel with me, Count Benderoff?” But before I could reply, he added: “But there, that must be ridiculous, for the Princess tells me I may look upon you as a man devoted to her cause, and, therefore, to mine. I shall not be unmindful of those who help us, I would have you understand that—though I wish you did not make it so difficult for me to tell it you.”
“I am not working for any hope of material reward at your hands,” I answered equivocally. His patronising tone galled me.
“No matter. That will not prevent your accepting it when the time comes. Few men do that, I find—even Englishmen. But now I wish us to be friends and comrades, Count. Do you see any reason against it?”
“We have not begun auspiciously,” said I drily.
“Hang it!” he cried with an oath. “You are as diffident as a girl in her teens. I don’t find men inclined to quarrel with my offers of friendship, I can tell you. I am not without power and influence, I can assure you;” and he smiled boastfully.