“Well,” said Gorman, “either expresses your meaning and I quite agree with you. She would not have done for you, and in the long run if you didn’t do for her she would certainly have done for you.”
“The English language is wonderful,” said the King. “She would not, and she would. It is the same in English. But my meaning is true. It is well I did not marry her. I must give many thanks to Phillips. If Phillips had not done for her I should have been done for.”
“As it is,” said Gorman, “it’s the Emperor who’s done.”
“Ah,” said the King. “I give in. I give up. I give out. That word ‘done’—it is too much for me.”
It was not like the King to give in to an English idiom. As a rule he rushed at one the minute he heard it with reckless confidence. But he was depressed and lonely on Salissa. He chatted cheerily enough to Donovan. He was always bright and talkative at meals. But he confessed to Gorman several times that he missed Madame Ypsilante very much.
It was Gorman’s curious fortune at this time to receive the love confidences of three different people. Phillips had poured raptures into his ear during the voyage to the island. The Queen, having no one else to treat as a confidant, often talked to him about Phillips. The King was expansive about Madame Ypsilante. One evening he became very sentimental, almost lachrymose. He and Gorman were sitting together near the flagstaff, smoking and looking out towards the harbour where the Megalian navy still lay at anchor.
“Ah,” said the King, “my poor Corinne! She will languish. I think of Corinne and I see that her eyes are full of mourning, like the eyes of a wood dove. Gorman, I cannot bear the weight. It will be better that I take the risk, that I go on the navy. The admiral will make me walk a plank. That is certain. But it might be that I should survive. And then I should rejoin Corinne, poor Corinne who mourns.”
“I don’t expect she’s mourning as much as all that,” said Gorman. “She’s got those pearls, you know.”