Pamela turned her head and looked at him. The faintly derisive smile died away from her lips. The man was in earnest. A certain curiosity stole into her eyes as the seconds passed. She studied his hard, strong face, with its great jaw and prominent forehead; the mouth, a little too full, and belying the rest of his physiognomy, yet with its own peculiar strength. He had taken off his spectacles, and it seemed to her that the cold, flinty light of his eyes had caught for a moment some touch of the softer blue of the sea or the sky. Seated, he lost some of the awkwardness of his too great and ill-carried height. It seemed to her that he was at least a person to be reckoned with, either in friendship or enmity.

"Are you an American born, Mr. Fischer," she asked him.

He shook his head.

"I was born at Offenbach," he told her, "near Frankfurt. My father brought me out to America when I was eleven years old."

"You must find the present condition of things a little trying for you," she observed.

Oscar Fischer put on his glasses again. He did not answer for several moments.

"That opens up a subject, Miss Van Teyl," he said, "which some day I should like to discuss with you."

"Why not now?" she invited. "I feel much more inclined for conversation than reading."

"Tell me, then, to begin with," he asked thoughtfully, "on which side are your sympathies?"

"I try to do my duty as an American citizen," she replied promptly, "and that is to have no sympathies. Our dear country has set the world an example of what neutrality should be. I think it is the duty of us Americans to try and bring ourselves into exactly the same line of feeling."