"Perhaps I am," she admitted, standing up, too, and linking her arm through his. "You see, my mother was English, and they say that I am entirely like her. I was brought up here in the English country. Sometimes my life at Vienna and Berlin seems almost like a dream to me, something unreal, as though I were playing at being some other woman. When I am back here, I feel as though I had come home. Do you know really that nothing would make me happier than to hear or think nothing about duty, to just know that I had come back to England to stay, and that you were English, and that we were going to live just the sort of life I pictured to myself that two people could live so happily over here, without too much ambition, without intrigue, simply and honestly. I am a little weary of cities and courts, Francis. To-night more than ever England seems to appeal to me, to remind me that I am one of her daughters." "Are you trying me, Anna?" he asked hoarsely. "Trying you? Of course not!" she answered. "I am speaking to you just simply and naturally, because you are the one person in the world to whom I may speak like that." "Then let's drop it, both of us!" he exclaimed, holding her arm tightly to his. "Courts and cities can do without you, and Selingman can do without me. We'll take a cottage somewhere and live through these evil days." She shook her head. "You and I are not like that, Francis," she declared. "When the storm breaks, we mustn't be found hiding in our holes. You know that quite well. It is for us to decide what part we may play. You have chosen. So, in a measure, have I. Tomorrow I am going on a secret mission to Italy." "Anna!" he cried in dismay. "Alas, yes!" she repeated, "We may not even meet again, Francis, till the map of Europe has been rewritten with the blood of many of our friends and millions of our country-people. But I shall think of you, and the kiss you will give me now shall be the last upon my lips." "You can go away?" he demanded. "You can leave me like this?" "I must," she answered simply. "I have work before me. Good-by, Francis! Somehow I knew what was coming. I believe that I am glad, dear, but I must think about it, and so must you."