‘Thank God, you’re not a man, Miss Nina!’ cried he fervently.
‘I’m not sure she’s not more dangerous as she is,’ said Lord Kilgobbin. ‘There’s people out there in the bog, starving and half-naked, would face the Queen’s Guards if they only heard her voice to cheer them on. Take my word for it, rebellion would have died out long ago in Ireland if there wasn’t the woman’s heart to warm it.’
‘If it were not too great a liberty, Mademoiselle Kostalergi,’ said Joe,’ I should tell you that you have not caught the true expression of my song. The brilliant bravura in which you gave the last line, immensely exciting as it was, is not correct. The whole force consists in the concentrated power of a fixed resolve—the passage should be subdued.’
An insolent toss of the head was all Nina’s reply, and there was a stillness in the room, as, exchanging looks with each other, the different persons there expressed their amazement at Atlee’s daring.
‘Who’s for a rubber of whist?’ said Lord Kilgobbin, to relieve the awkward pause. ‘Are you, Curtis? Atlee, I know, is ready.’
‘Here is all prepared,’ said Dick. ‘Captain Curtis told me before dinner that he would not like to go to bed till he had his sergeant’s report, and so I have ordered a broiled bone to be ready at one o’clock, and we’ll sit up as late as he likes after.’
‘Make the stake pounds and fives,’ cried Joe, ‘and I should pronounce your arrangements perfection.’
‘With this amendment,’ interposed my lord, ‘that nobody is expected to pay!’
‘I say, Joe,’ whispered Dick, as they drew nigh the table, ‘my cousin is angry with you; why have you not asked her to sing?’
‘Because she expects it; because she’s tossing over the music yonder to provoke it; because she’s in a furious rage with me: that will be nine points of the game in my favour,’ hissed he out between his teeth.