She looked over the delightful place where they sat. “Nothing to compare to this. I adore England!” she cried.
It fairly stirred in him the sacred chord. “Ah of course I don’t deny that we must do something with her, poor old dear, yet.”
“She hasn’t been touched, really,” said the girl.
“Did Mr. St. George say that?”
There was a small and, as he felt, harmless spark of irony in his question; which, however, she answered very simply, not noticing the insinuation. “Yes, he says England hasn’t been touched—not considering all there is,” she went on eagerly. “He’s so interesting about our country. To listen to him makes one want so to do something.”
“It would make me want to,” said Paul Overt, feeling strongly, on the instant, the suggestion of what she said and that of the emotion with which she said it, and well aware of what an incentive, on St. George’s lips, such a speech might be.
“Oh you—as if you hadn’t! I should like so to hear you talk together,” she added ardently.
“That’s very genial of you; but he’d have it all his own way. I’m prostrate before him.”
She had an air of earnestness. “Do you think then he’s so perfect?”
“Far from it. Some of his later books seem to me of a queerness—!”