“These concessions have been spoken about, Mr. Donnington, with unusual freedom.”
“That is not my doing. M. Volheno gave a somewhat lurid account of them to the Marquis de Pinsara, as a man likely to be able to help in the matter; and the latter appears to have told all his acquaintances. I shall not be in the least surprised to find the matter in the papers in the morning. Of course it is very ridiculous and calculated to frustrate my object entirely. But it is not my doing, I assure you.”
“Yet M. Volheno might have an object?”
“You mean to use them to conceal some other purpose for my visit?”
“And you give me your word that you have no other purpose except to obtain these concessions?”
“Contesse Inglesia put much the same question, and I will answer it as I answered her. I pledge my word that I have no sort or kind of interest in the political affairs of your country otherwise than as they may be incidentally connected with these concessions.”
“Is that an entirely frank answer, Mr. Donnington?”
“Any suspicion underlying that remark I have already given you the means of dissipating. I declare to you, on my honour as an English gentleman, that I have none but absolutely private and personal reasons for coming to Lisbon.”
“You have discussed political matters with M. Volheno?”
“Certainly not in any detail. He told me the city was in a condition of unrest, and that there were all sorts of more or less dangerous combinations against the Government. But this was merely as a reason for the warning he gave me against being in the streets alone after dark.”