“There are not many Dutchmen in London,” said Mr. Vissering grimly. “Before the war Germans were preferred.” He laughed harshly. “As for us, we have always preferred France to England.”
And then Lily, feeling that the time had come when she must say something to help Uncle Angelo, suddenly remarked, a little timidly, and yet firmly too:
“I wonder, Monsieur, if you are acquainted with a Dutch gentleman named Baron van Voorst? He is the only Dutchman I have ever met.”
And then, to her surprise, and to the Count’s relief, there came a distinct change over the old man. He drew a long breath.
“I have not met him,” he said, again speaking in English, but in a very different and a far more courteous tone. “The Baron is certainly a very distinguished man; one of our best-known statesmen. Do I understand you to say that you are personally acquainted with him?”
“Yes,” said Lily, feeling—she could not have told you why—a little less uncomfortable. “I know him and his family quite well. He had his daughter with him—a girl about my own age—and they both said they hoped I would go some day to Holland; in fact, they asked me to go and stay with them there next spring to see the tulips in flower.”
Here Count Polda intervened with what Lily could not help feeling was a rather uncalled-for, and snobbish, interruption:
“My niece, Miss Fairfield, comes of a very good English family,” he observed pompously.
“People of good family are but human after all,” said the old man disagreeably. “Does Mademoiselle frequent the Casino?”
He was certainly speaking more pleasantly, but, still, there was a curious note in his voice—a note to which Lily was very unaccustomed, that of a certain contemptuous familiarity.