but so far from being tall, her figure was almost petite.  Her dark brown hair was arranged in perfectly plain braids behind and with a slight fringe in front.  Her complexion was pale.  Her features were almost cameo-like in their delicacy and perfection, but any suggestion of coldness was dissipated at once by the extraordinary expressiveness of her mouth and the softness of her deep blue eyes.  Norgate looked from the mirror into her face.  There was a little smile upon his lips, but he said nothing.

“Some day,” she said, “not in the restaurant here but when we are alone and have time, I should so much like to talk with you on really serious matters.”

“There is one serious matter,” he assured her, “which I should like to discuss with you now or at any time.”

She made a little grimace at him.

“Let it be now, then,” she suggested, leaning across the table.  “We will leave my sort of serious things for another time.  I am quite certain that I know where your sort is going to lead us.  You are going to make love to me.”

“Do you mind?” he asked earnestly.

She became suddenly grave.

“Not yet,” she begged.  “Let us talk and live nonsense for a few more weeks.  You see, I really have not known you very long, have I, and this is a very dangerous city for flirtations.  At Court one has to be so careful, and you know I am already considered far too much of a Bohemian here.  I was even given to understand, a little time ago, by a very great lady, that my position was quite precarious.”

“Does that—­does anything matter if—­”

“It is not of myself alone that I am thinking.  Everything matters to one in your profession,” she reminded him pointedly.

“I believe,” he exclaimed, “that you think more of my profession than you do of me!”

“Quite impossible,” she retorted mockingly.  “And yet, as I dare say you have already realised, it is not only the things you say to our statesmen here, and the reports you make, which count.  It is your daily life among the people of the nation to which you are attached, the friends you make among them, the hospitality you accept and offer, which has all the time its subtle significance.  Now I am not sure, even, that I am, a very good companion for you, Mr. Francis Norgate.”

“You are a very bad one for my peace of mind,” he assured her.

She shook her head.  “You say those things much too glibly,” she declared.  “I am afraid that you have served a very long apprenticeship.”

“If I have,” he replied, leaning a little across the table, “it has been an apprenticeship only, a probationary period during which one struggles towards the real thing.”

“You think you will know when you have found it?” she murmured.

He drew a little breath.  His voice even trembled as he answered her.  “I know now,” he said softly.