Jasper was very self-contained and practical. He satisfied himself that everything about the car was in order, then only did he get in. He took the wheel and waved Rosemary a last farewell, and very soon the car disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust.
[CHAPTER XXXVII]
General Naniescu was enjoying himself thoroughly. He had his friend Number Ten sitting there opposite him, and Number Ten was looking as savage as a bear. Naniescu had offered him a cigar, a glass of fine, even whiskey and soda, but Number Ten had declined everything and remained very truculent.
"You had no right," he said, with a savage oath, "to go behind my back."
But Naniescu was at his blandest. "What could I do, my dear friend?" he asked, and waved his white, downy hands to emphasise by appropriate gesture, both his perplexity and his contrition. "What would you have had me do? Decline to deal with that young Blakeney? Then those precious articles would have been lost to me for ever. Lady Tarkington would not have written them all over again."
"I told you the other day that I would get those articles for you. Ask M. de Kervoisin here if I have ever failed in anything I have undertaken. I had the manuscript in my hand when that young blackguard snatched it out of my hand. Curse him!"
Naniescu leaned back in his chair and gave a guttural, complacent laugh: "I do agree with you, my dear friend," he said. "That young Blakeney is an unmitigated blackguard. I have had to deal with some in my day, but never with such a corrupt, dirty scoundrel. Yes, dirty, that's what he is. But you know, you English, you are astonishing! Everything big with you—big fellows, big Empire, big money, big blackguards! Yes, big blackguards! Oh, là, là!"
"Yes," Number Ten assented dryly. "And the big blackguard who is also a big fellow, got big money out of you, for you have been a fool, as well as a knave, my friend. I only asked you ten thousand sterling for the manuscript."
"Are you pretending that you know what I paid Blakeney?" Naniescu asked, with his most fatuous smile. "Because, my friend, in picturesque poker parlance—I am very fond of a game of poker myself—and in poker language we call what you are doing now 'bluff.' You don't know what I paid Blakeney for the manuscript. But I don't mind telling you that I paid nothing at all. Yes, my dear friend, nothing at all."
And with the tip of his well-manicured little finger, Naniescu emphasised every syllable with a tap on the table.