Her start was unmistakable.
“How on earth do you know anything about that?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“These are the days,” he said, “when, if one is to succeed in my profession, one must know everything.”
She did not speak for a moment. His question had been rather a shock to her. In a moment or two, however, she found herself wondering how to use it for her own advantage.
“It is true,” she admitted.
He looked intently at the point of his patent shoe.
“Is this not a case, Countess,” he ventured, “in which you and I might perhaps come a little closer together?”
“If you have anything to suggest, I am ready to listen,” she said.
“I wonder,” he went on, “if I am right in some of my ideas? I shall test them. You have taken up your abode in England. That was natural, for domestic reasons. You have shown a great interest in a certain section of the British public. It is my theory that your interest in England is for that section only; that as a country, you are no more an admirer of her characteristics than I am.”