“And we are to have the jewels?”
“But surely. She said after the first ten minutes, ‘Oh, but do go on!’ and after the next, ‘But what happened then?’ and after the third ‘Good-night—and thank you.’ May I have a light, De Nemours? Thanks!”
“And those—those are the epigrams?” O’Hara threw back his head and laughed—a sudden boyish shout, oddly at variance with his stern young face.
“Ah,” murmured Celati, a reminiscent and enigmatic smile touching his lips, “you should have heard her voice!”
O’Hara’s smile vanished abruptly. He came perilously near scowling as he stood staring down at the inscrutable Latin countenances blandly presented for inspection. De Nemours permitted a flicker of genial appreciation to warm his cold eyes, the tribute of a highly distinguished connoisseur. Truly, this young Irishman, he was of a magnificence. No collector of beauty in all its forms could remain unmoved by the sight of that superb head—that more than superb body. Praxiteles Hermes turned gypsy! One of those Celts with obviously Spanish blood running hot and cold through their veins. The cool appraisal hovered for the moment on the verge of interest—flickered out. De Nemours was quite definitely convinced that not one man in a thousand was deserving of interest, and he had found little in an extremely varied experience to shake his conclusions.
“An exquisite voice,” he agreed pleasantly. “It will turn our dullest statistics to madrigals. The gods are merciful.”
O’Hara swung his chair to the table, protest bitter in his stormy gray eyes and on his quick tongue. These damned foreigners!
“You don’t seem to grasp the situation. We are here to settle matters of vital urgency, not to conduct a salon. Our reports on the various insurgent activities throughout our countries are to be test cases for the world. We’re not only to report conditions but to suggest solutions. Think, man, think! This room may be the laboratory where we will discover the formula to heal a world that’s near to dying. Can you turn that into an epigram or a jest?”
“No,” said De Nemours softly, and he looked suddenly very tired and very old, “that is no epigram, Monsieur O’Hara—that is no jest. Ah, my country, my country.” His voice was hardly above a whisper, but in the cold and bitter eyes there was something that wailed aloud.
“Yes, my country,” O’Hara retorted fiercely, “but more than that. There are five members of this Committee—not four.”