“Let’s drop hypothesis,” she said, “and come back to facts. I’ve given you three good reasons for having it cut. Except that it’s a national treasure, of which, I assume, I am the luckless trustee, can you give me one single reason why it should be preserved?”
Jeremy hesitated.
Then—
“No,” he said quietly. “I can’t.”
There was a silence.
The man smiled thoughtfully, staring straight ahead. With a faint frown the girl regarded the leisurely disintegration of the logs in the grate. The distant throb of ragtime filtered into the room, only to subside, as though abashed, before the stately lecture of a Vulliamy clock.
“Let us talk,” said Eve, “of the past.”
“Good,” said Jeremy. “I’ll begin. If I’d been brought up to be a plumber, instead of a diplomat——”
“Oh, I wish you had,” said Eve. “My bath’s gone wrong again.”
“What, not the Roman?”