I want the commissariat properly organized."
He had been staring through her rather than at her, so it had seemed to
Joan. Suddenly their eyes met, and he broke into a smile.
"I'm so awfully sorry," he said. "I've been talking to you as if you
were a public meeting. I'm afraid I'm more used to them than I am to
women. Please forgive me."
The whole man had changed. The eyes had a timid pleading in them.
Joan laughed. "I've been feeling as if I were the King of Bavaria," she
said.
"How did he feel?" he asked her, leaning forward.
"He had his own private theatre," Joan explained, "where Wagner gave his
operas. And the King was the sole audience."
"I should have hated that," he said, "if I had been Wagner."
He looked at her, and a flush passed over his boyish face.
"All right," he said, "if it had been a queen."
Joan found herself tracing patterns with her spoon upon the tablecloth.
"But you have won now," she said, still absorbed apparently with her
drawing, "you are going to get your chance."
He gave a short laugh. "A trick," he said, "to weaken me.
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