"I feel quite sick," he murmured. "Ah, these English! mon ami. You do not know them as I do. I firmly believe that they would sell their fathers, their mothers, their sisters, or their wives if they saw money in the transaction."
Kervoisin made no comment on this tirade; after a while he asked abruptly: "What are you doing to prevent the lovely Uno from putting a spoke in your wheel?"
Naniescu gave a complacent laugh.
"Doing?" he retorted. "Why, I've already done everything, my friend. My courier starts to-night for London with Lady Tarkington's letter and manuscript. He will be in London on Monday evening. On Tuesday he will call on the editor of the Times. Ostensibly he is Lady Tarkington's messenger. When he has delivered the letter he will ask for a reply. That reply he will telegraph to me. Then we shall know where we are."
He drank another glass of fine, then he went on:
"I have no doubt that the fair Uno has already got her boxes packed and is ready to start for England by the express to-night, but——"
Naniescu paused. He stretched out his legs, examined the toes of his boots and the smoke of his cigar; his face wore an expression of fatuous self-satisfaction. "I think," he said, "that you will be surprised at what I have done in the time. And so will the fair Uno," he added with an expressive twinkle in his fine, dark eyes.
"What about friend Number Ten?" Kervoisin remarked dryly.
"Well," Naniescu retorted with his affected smile, "I imagine that friend Number Ten will be the most surprised of the lot."