“You spoke, a little time ago,” she continued, “of some great crisis with which your country might soon come face to face. Might I ask you this: were you thinking of war with the United States?”
He looked at her in silence for several moments.
“Dear Miss Penelope,” he said,—“may I call you that? Forgive me if I am too forward, but I hear so many of our friends—”
“You may call me that,” she interrupted softly.
“Let me remind you, then, of what we were saying a little time ago,” he went on. “You will not take offence? You will understand, I am sure. Those things that lie nearest to my heart concerning my country are the things of which I cannot speak.”
“Not even to me?” she pleaded. “I am so insignificant. Surely I do not count?”
“Miss Penelope,” he said, “you yourself are a daughter of that country of which we have been speaking.”
She was silent.
“You think, then,” she asked, “that I put my country before everything else in the world?”
“I believe,” he answered, “that you would. Your country is too young to be wholly degenerate. It is true that you are a nation of fused races—a strange medley of people, but still you are a nation. I believe that in time of stress you would place your country before everything else.”