“I am entirely at your service, Countess,” he answered promptly.  “As a matter of fact, I have already promised to appear there myself for an hour.”

“You would like to play bridge now, perhaps?” she asked.

“The Princess was kind enough to invite me,” he replied, “but I ventured to excuse myself.  I saw that the numbers were even without me, and I hoped for a little more conversation with you.”

They seated themselves in an exceedingly comfortable corner.  A footman brought them coffee, and a butler offered strange liqueurs.  Catherine leaned back with a little sigh of relief.

“Every one calls this room of my aunt’s the hotel lounge,” she remarked.  “Personally, I love it.”

“To me, also, it is the ideal apartment,” he confessed.  “Here we are alone, and I may ask you a question which was on my lips when we had tea together at the Carlton, and which, but for our environment, I should certainly have asked you at dinner time.”

“You may ask me anything,” she assured him, with a little smile.  “I am feeling happy and loquacious.  Don’t tempt me to talk, or I shall give away all my life’s secrets.”

“I will only ask you for one just now,” he promised.  “Is it true that you have to-day had some disagreement with—­shall I say a small congress of men who have their meetings down at Westminster, and with whom you have been in close touch for some time?”

Her start was unmistakable.

“How on earth do you know anything about that?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“These are the days,” he said, “when, if one is to succeed in my profession, one must know everything.”

She did not speak for a moment.  His question had been rather a shock to her.  In a moment or two, however, she found herself wondering how to use it for her own advantage.

“It is true,” she admitted.

He looked intently at the point of his patent shoe.

“Is this not a case, Countess,” he ventured, “in which you and I might perhaps come a little closer together?”

“If you have anything to suggest, I am ready to listen,” she said.

“I wonder,” he went on, “if I am right in some of my ideas?  I shall test them.  You have taken up your abode in England.  That was natural, for domestic reasons.  You have shown a great interest in a certain section of the British public.  It is my theory that your interest in England is for that section only; that as a country, you are no more an admirer of her characteristics than I am.”

“You are perfectly right,” she answered coolly.

“Your interest,” he proceeded, “is in the men and women toilers of the world, the people who carry on their shoulders the whole burden of life, and whose position you are continually desiring to ameliorate.  I take it that your sympathy is international?”

“It is,” she assented

“People of this order in—­say—­Germany, excite your sympathy in the same degree?”