Felix hesitated.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you had better not know. The less you know of me the better. The time may come when it will be to your benefit to be ignorant.”
Wolfenden took no pains to hide his incredulity.
“It is easy to see that you are a stranger in this country,” he remarked. “We are not in Russia or in South America. I can assure you that we scarcely know the meaning of the word ‘intrigue’ here. We are the most matter-of-fact and perhaps the most commonplace nation in the world. You will find it out for yourself in time. Whilst you are with us you must perforce fall to our level.”
“I, too, must become commonplace,” Felix said, smiling. “Is that what you mean?”
“In a certain sense, yes,” Wolfenden answered. “You will not be able to help it. It will be the natural result of your environment. In your own country, wherever that may be, I can imagine that you might be a person jealously watched by the police; your comings and goings made a note of; your intrigues—I take it for granted that you are concerned in some—the object of the most jealous and unceasing suspicion. Here there is nothing of that. You could not intrigue if you wanted to. There is nothing to intrigue about.”
They were crossing a crowded thoroughfare, and Felix did not reply until they were safe on the opposite pavement. Then he took Wolfenden’s arm, and, leaning over, almost whispered in his ear—
“You speak,” he said, “what nine-tenths of your countrymen believe. Yet you are wrong. Wherever there are international questions which bring great powers such as yours into antagonism, or the reverse, with other great countries, the soil is laid ready for intrigue, and the seed is never long wanted. Yes; I know that, to all appearance, you are the smuggest and most respectable nation ever evolved in this world’s history. Yet if you tell me that your’s is a nation free from intrigue, I correct you; you are wrong, you do not know—that is all! That very man, whose life last night you so inopportunely saved, is at this moment deeply involved in an intrigue against your country.”
“Mr. Sabin!” Wolfenden exclaimed.