"Well," he blurted out, "if I must say it, I think that you're plotting a revolution in this country, putting Leborge up as president, letting Manuel run the country, driving the United States clean out of it, and giving you the chance to take all sorts of commercial concessions for yourself."
The Englishman nodded his head.
"For a guess," he declared, "your idea is not half bad. Evidently, you have plenty of imagination. The only trouble with your summing up of the situation, my boy, is that it is wrong in every particular. If you did not learn any more than that from the conference, your information is quite harmless. I suppose I can count on your never mentioning this meeting?"
Stuart thought for a moment.
"No," he said, "I can't promise that."
The Englishman lifted his eyebrows slightly.
"And why?"
Stuart found it difficult to say why. He had a feeling that to swear silence would, in a sense, make him a party to the conspiracy, whatever it might be.
"I—I've got it in for Manuel," he said lamely, though conscious, as he said it, that the reply would not satisfy.
Cecil looked at him through narrowed eyelids.