She was silent.
His suave manner conveyed subtly an implication of the importance he attached to her approval.
"I would not inflict a dose of the material philosophy of age upon one so young and charming, my dear," he went on; "but possibly you will forgive me if I indicate to you the regrettable circumstance that the ideal is seldom attainable? In other words, mistress, to obtain the greatest good for the greatest number of people it is occasionally necessary to inflict misery, suffering, even death, upon a lesser number. As in the present case, in order to secure the means for reëstablishing King James and what your father so quaintly terms the True Faith in the British Isles, it hath been necessary for a gentleman of questionable legal status—myself—associated with others of yet more dubious antecedents and repute, to procure the death of divers Spanish persons, who, of themselves, had never wrought any harm against us or the cause we served.
"Paradoxical, I must admit, involving an apparent denial of the essential elements of divine justice, and in an ordinary light a gross breach of the world's laws and conventions. But 'tis by precisely such contraventions of precedent and lettered laws that epochal events are brought about. I trust my reasoning is clear?"
"Faith, sir," she answered simply, "I think you will be poking fun at me."
My great-uncle took snuff.
"I was never more serious," he asserted.
O'Donnell emptied a fourth glass with an impatient growl that masked an oath.
"You are wasting time, Murray. Moira is a good lass, and my daughter; but what she thinks of this venture——"
"—is of considerable importance to me," my great-uncle protested. "I was compelled in the beginning of our acquaintance to give her a wrong impression of my character, and I am extremely desirous to have her good opinion."