"I take a lively interest in you, my child; always have." "You're a darling," said Olga, raising her face impulsively.

"I shall write and tell Dad what care you are taking of us all." She kissed him warmly and let him go, smiling at the tuneless humming that accompanied his departure.

Who at a casual glance would have taken Nick Ratcliffe for one of the keenest politicians of his party, a man whom friend and foe alike regarded as too brilliant to be ignored?
He had even been jestingly described as "that doughty champion of the British Empire"-- an epithet that Olga cherished jealously because it had not been bestowed wholly in jest.
His general appearance was certainly the reverse of imposing, and in this particular, to her intense gratification, Olga resembled him.

She had the same quick, pale eyes, with the shrewdness of observation that never needed to look twice, the same colourless brows and lashes and insignificant features; but she possessed one redeeming point which Nick lacked.

What with him was an impish grin of sheer exuberance, with her was a smile of rare enchantment, very fleeting, with a fascination quite indescribable but none the less capable of imparting to her pale young face a charm that only the greatest artists have ever been able to depict.