“Have you told him?”
“I have just done so, signorina,” he replied.
I had not energy enough to greet her; so she also sat down uninvited, and took off her gloves—not lazily, like the colonel, but with an air as though she would, if a man, take off her coat, to meet the crisis more energetically.
At last I said, with conviction:
“He’s a wonderful man! How did you find it out, colonel?”
“Had Johnny Carr to dine and made him drunk,” said that worthy.
“You don’t mean he trusted Johnny?”
“Odd, isn’t it?” said the colonel. “With his experience, too. He might have known Johnny was an ass. I suppose there was no one else.”
“He knew,” said the signorina, “anyone else in the place would betray him; he knew Johnny wouldn’t if he could help it. He underrated your powers, colonel.”
“Well,” said I, “I can’t help it, can I? My directors will lose. The bondholders will lose. But how does it hurt me?”