She crossed the room with her light, unhurried tread, and stopped, serenely gracious, before O’Hara.
“You are the British representative, are you not? It is very stupid of me, but I don’t believe that I have heard your name.”
“You have heard it a good hundred times,” thought the British representative grimly.
“Madame, permit that I present to you Mr. O’Hara.”
“Mr. O’Hara?” Her smile was suddenly as winningly mischievous as a child’s. “That’s a grand name entirely for an Englishman.”
O’Hara’s eyes were ice gray. “I’m no Englishman, Mrs. Lindsay. But some of us in Ireland hold still that we are part of Great Britain though the Colonials may have seen fit to forget it.”
The velvety eyes lifted to his were warm with sympathy and concern. “That’s splendid of you; we hear so much bitterness amongst the Irish here, and somehow it seems—ugly. After all, as you say, no matter what she may do—or has done—England is England! But I am distressed to hear that there has been disloyalty elsewhere. You think Canada—Australia?”
“I think neither. It was of other children of England that I was thinking, Mrs. Lindsay—ungrateful and rebellious children.”
“Oh, how stupid. Egypt, of course, and India. But, after all, they are only adopted children, aren’t they? Perhaps if we give them time they’ll grow to be as loyal and steadfast and dependable as you yourselves. Pazienza——”
“I was not——”