“You are succeeding admirably,” O’Hara assured her. He was dangerously angry, with the violent and sickening anger of a man who had been made a fool of—and who has richly deserved it. “As you say, it is—limpid. But why not a third alternative? Why should the Italian Government do anything at all? Why not simply lie quiet and play safe? It would not be for the first time.”
“Mr. O’Hara!” Celati was on his feet, white to the lips.
Mrs. Lindsay stretched out her hands with a prettily eloquent gesture of despair. “Oh, really!” she said quietly. “Is this kind of thing necessary? We are all working together for the same purpose—a purpose that has surely too much dignity to be degraded to such pettiness. Mr. O’Hara, I beg of you——”
“It is not necessary to beg of me.” He leaned across the table, something boyish and winning in his face, his hand outstretched. “I say, Celati, I’m no end of a bounder; do let me off this once—I’m bone tired—haven’t slept for nights, trying to think of ways through this beastly mess. I don’t know what I’m saying, and that’s Heaven’s truth. Is it all right?”
“Quite. We are, I think, all tired.”
“Men,” Mrs. Lindsay murmured gently—“men are really wonderful. What two women would have done that?”
O’Hara considered her for a moment in silence.
“Is that a tribute you are paying us?” he inquired quite as gently.
“Why, what else?” Again the soft amazement.
“I was seeking information. It struck me as ambiguous.”