She smiled up at him over her fan; a small and costly painted affair, with diamonds incrusted in the handle.
"You are more modest than most Englishmen," she said.
"I don't know whether to be grateful or not for that," remarked Drake. "Are we all so conceited?"
"Well, I think you are all pretty well satisfied with yourselves," she replied. "I never knew any nation so firmly convinced that it was the pick of creation; and I expect before I am here very long I shall become as fully convinced as you are that the world was made by special contract for the use and amusement of the English. Mind, I won't say that it could have been made for a better people."
"That's rather severe," said Drake. "But don't you forget that you were English yourself a few years ago; that, in a sense, you are English still."
"That's very nicely said," she remarked; "more especially as I didn't quite deserve it. I was wanting to see whether I could make you angry."
Drake stared at her with astonishment.
"Why on earth should you want to make me angry?" he asked.
"Well, I've heard a great deal about you," she replied. "And all the people who talked about you told me that you were rather hot-tempered. Lady Northgate, for instance, assured me you could be a perfect bear when you liked."
Drake smiled.