She smiled brilliantly.
His heart beat a little quicker as he bent his ear to her customary whisper. Her secrets were always interesting, sometimes sensational, and there was always a pleasure in the sense of superiority that knowledge conferred, and in the feeling of touching, through his Princess-Countess, the inmost circles of European diplomacy. He was of the gods, and should know whatever was on the knees of his fellow-gods.
"Bismarck is thinking of granting Universal Suffrage!"
"Universal Suffrage!" he shouted.
"Hush, hush! Walls have ears."
"Then I must have inspired him."
"No; but you will have."
"How do you mean? Is it not my idea?"
"Implicitly, perhaps, but you have never really pressed for it specifically. Your only contribution to practical politics is a futile suggestion that the Diet should refuse to sit, and so cut off supplies. Now of course Universal Suffrage is the first item of the programme of your Working-Men's Union."
"Sophie!"