Yet within seconds, he began to realize the shallowness of his reaction. There was a quality to this young lady, something in the way she carried herself, about her smile, her laugh, her voice, the attentive manner in which he could tell she was probing beyond surface appearances. When their eyes met, he had seen past mere looks. In that moment he knew he had touched something deeper and more personal, though he could not put his finger on what exactly it was.

“I saw you with those others over there,” said Matthew, after a moment. “Are they friends of yours?”

“My cousin Brigitte is one of them. I was speaking with her.”

“Do you want to join them again?” said Matthew. “I won’t mind if you—”

“Not for a minute!” interrupted Sabina with a merry laugh. “The son of the American ambassador is far more interesting than my cousin and her companions. I could not have been more delighted that my father rescued me from their company.”

“Son of the assistant ambassador,” corrected Matthew.

“No matter. You could be the son of Berlin’s garbage minister and I would still find you more interesting!”

As they spoke, Sabina glanced over at Brigitte, dressed in a gown designed for a much more mature woman, trying to look older than she was, blinking her long lashes and flirting with the men around her, one of whom she knew to be a friend of Herr Himmler’s nephew. A look of mixed pity and annoyance came over her face, and a small unbidden sigh escaped her lips. Matthew was puzzled by the look on her face, but intrigued to know more of what was behind those lovely eyes.

On his part, Matthew found himself noting the face of the man dressed in plain clothes rather than Sabina’s cousin. He judged him between twenty-eight and thirty, maybe thirty-one. He wore a look Matthew had already seen many times in the German countenance, especially in young men—a look that reminded him of steel. Rigid, frozen, emotionless. Not even the smile on his face, which gave all the signs that he was beguiled by the girl’s attentions, could erase the cold heart of stone which one sensed lay beneath it all. Somehow, Matthew thought, the Nazi programme seemed to remove or desensitize the human hearts of those who embraced it.

As they stood for a second or two observing the scene, suddenly it dawned on Matthew what his subconscious mind had been trying to figure out about Sabina.

That was the difference he had seen in her almost the first instant!