“That’s the artistic soul,” I said, “never satisfied, always reaching upwards towards the unattained. It’s the same with Mrs. Ascher.”
“Of all the damned idiocies,” said Gorman, “that artistic soul is the damnedest.”
I said nothing more for several minutes. I knew it would take Gorman some time to recover from the mention of the artistic soul. When I thought he had regained his self-possession I went on speaking.
“My idea,” I said, “is to hire a small hall, and to invite a number of well-off people to see Tim’s show. You’ll want money in the end, you know.”
“Not much,” said Gorman. “A few thousands will be enough. It isn’t as if we had to manufacture anything.”
“If you get what you want,” I said, “in small sums from a number of people, you’ll be able to keep control of the thing yourself, and you needn’t be afraid of Ascher. Not that I believe Ascher would swindle, you. I think Ascher’s an honest man.”
“Ascher’s a financier,” said Gorman. “That’s enough for me.”
CHAPTER XIII.
I never suspected Malcolmson of the cheap kind of military ardour which shows itself in the girding on of swords after the hour of danger is past. He is the kind of man who likes taking risks, and I have not the slightest doubt that if he had really known beforehand that the Government was “plotting” to invade Ulster he would have been found entrenched, with a loaded rifle beside him, on the north bank of the Boyne. What I did think, when he left London suddenly to place himself at the head of his men, was that he had been a little carried away by the excitement of the times; that he was moved, as many people are, when startling events happen, to do something, without any very distinct idea of what is to be done. But even that suspicion wronged Malcolmson. Either he or some one else had devised an effective counterplot; effective considered as a second act in a comic opera. Perhaps I ought not to say comic opera. There is a certain reasonableness in the schemes of every comic opera. Our affairs in the early part of 1914 were moving through an atmosphere like that of “Alice in Wonderland.” The Government was a sort of Duchess, affecting to regard Ulster as the baby which was beaten when it sneezed because it could if it chose thoroughly enjoy the pepper of Home Rule. The Opposition, on the other hand, with its eye also on Ulster, kept saying in tones of awestruck warning, “Beware the Jabberwock, my son.” Malcolmson seemed to be a kind of White Knight, lovable, simple-minded, chivalrous, but a little out of place in the world.