Paul turned his steady eyes over the room, looking from one article of furniture to another: this was a way he had when engaged in a discussion, and it suggested not so much his reflecting on what his interlocutor said as that his thoughts were pursuing a bravely independent course. Presently he took up her remark. “I don’t know that I quite understand what you mean by that question of taking a woman seriously.” “Ah you’re very perfect!” she lightly wailed. “Don’t you consider that the changes you look for will be also for our benefit?” “I don’t think they’ll alter your position.” “If I didn’t hope for that I wouldn’t do anything,” said the Princess. “Oh I’ve no doubt you’ll do a great deal.” The young man’s companion was silent for some minutes, during which he also was content to say nothing. “I wonder you can find it in your conscience to work with me,” she observed at last. “It isn’t in my conscience I find it,” he laughed. The maid-servant brought in the tea, and while his hostess made a place for it on a table beside her she returned: “Well, I don’t care, for I think I have you in my power.” “You’ve every one in your power,” Paul declared. “Every one’s no one,” she answered rather dryly; and a moment later she said to him: “That extraordinary little sister of yours—surely you take _her_ seriously?” “I’m particularly fond of her, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t think her position will ever be altered.” “Are you alluding to her position in bed? If you consider that she’ll never recover her health,” the Princess said, “I’m very sorry to hear it.” “Oh her health will do. I mean that she’ll continue to be, like all the most amiable women, just a kind of ornament to life.” She had already noted that he pronounced amiable “emiable”; but she had accepted this peculiarity of her visitor in the spirit of imaginative transfigurement in which she had accepted several others. “To _your_ life of course. She can hardly be said to be an ornament to her own.” “Her life and mine are all one.” “She’s a prodigious person”—the Princess dismissed her. But while he drank his tea she remarked that for a revolutionist he was certainly prodigious as well; and he wanted to know in answer if it weren’t rather in keeping for revolutionists to be revolutionary. He drank three cups, declaring his hostess’s decoction rare; it was better even than Lady Aurora’s. This led him to observe as he put down his third cup, looking round the room again lovingly, almost covetously: “You’ve got everything so handy I don’t see what interest you can have.” “How do you mean, what interest?” “In getting in so uncommon deep.” The light in her face flashed on the instant into pure passion. “Do you consider that I’m in—really far?” “Up to your neck, ma’am.” “And do you think that _il y va_ of my neck—I mean that it’s in danger?” she translated eagerly. “Oh I understand your French. Well, I’ll look after you,” Muniment said.