She smiled.
"I notice," she said, "that English people are changing their attitude towards my country. A few years ago she seemed negligible to them. Now they are beginning to have—shall I call them fears? Even my kind host, I think, would like to know what is in Paul Matinsky's heart as he hears the friends of Oscar Immelan plead their cause."
"I admit it," he told her frankly. "I will go farther. I would give a great deal to know what is in your own mind to-day concerning us and our destiny. But these things are not for the moment. It was not to discuss or even to think of them that I asked you here to-day."
"Why did you invite me, then?" she asked, smiling.
"Because I wanted the pleasure of having you opposite me," he replied,—"because I wanted to know you better."
"And are you progressing?"
"Indifferently well," he acknowledged. "I seem to gain a little and slide back again. You are not an easy person to know well."
"Nothing that is worth having is easy," she answered, "and I can assure you, when my friendship is once gained, it is a rare and steadfast thing."
"And your affection?" he ventured.
Her eyes rested upon his for a moment and then suddenly drooped. A little tinge of colour stole into her cheeks. For a moment she seemed to have lost her admirable poise.