“What on earth has the Emperor got to do with it?” said Gorman. “Megalia is an independent state, isn’t it?”
Steinwitz laughed.
“Very few states,” he said, “are independent of the Emperor.”
There was something in the way he spoke, a note of arrogance, a suggestion of truculence, which nettled Gorman.
“Donovan,” he said, “is a free citizen of the United States of America. That’s what he says himself. I don’t expect he cares a damn about any emperor.”
“Ah well,” said Steinwitz, “it does not matter, does it? Since he has not bought the Island of Salissa, no question is likely to arise. The Emperor will not object to his wandering round the Cyrenian Sea in the Ida.”
Gorman was singularly dull when he joined me in the smoking-room after luncheon. I do not recollect any other occasion on which I found him disinclined to talk. I opened the most seductive subjects. I said I was sure Ulster really meant to take up arms against Home Rule. I said that the Sinn Féiners were getting stronger and stronger in Ireland, and that neither Gorman nor any member of his party would be returned at the next General Election. Gorman must have wanted to contradict me; but he did not say a word. It was only when I got up to go away that he spoke; and then he made a remark which had no bearing whatever on anything which I had said.
“Women,” he growled, “are hell. In business they’re red hell.”