I accepted the rebuke. Gorman was perfectly right. In English public life it is necessary to profess a respect for decency, to make aprons of fig leaves. In Ireland we do without these coverings.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Gorman, “if I got some sort of decoration out of the Emperor too before I’m through with this business. Once these ribbons and stars begin to drop on a man, they come thick and fast, kind of attract each other, I suppose. I wonder,” he added with sudden irrelevancy, “what the Emperor’s game is. That’s what I’ve been trying to make out all along. Why is he in it?”
“He wants the Island of Salissa restored to the Crown of Megalia,” I said. “You’ve been told that often enough.”
“Yes, but why? Why? The island isn’t worth having. As well as I can make out it’s simply a rock with a little clay sprinkled on top of it. What can it matter to the Emperor who owns the place? It isn’t as if it were his originally or as if it would become his. It belongs to Megalia. With all the fuss that’s being made you’d think there was a gold mine there.”
The puzzle became more complicated and Gorman’s curiosity was further whetted before he started for Salissa. After leaving my rooms he went to Cockspur Street and called at the office of the Cyrenian Sea Steam Navigation Company. Steinwitz was expecting him and received him in the most friendly manner.
“Sir Bartholomew Bland-Potterton,” said Steinwitz, “rang me up this morning, and told me that you’d undertaken our little negotiation. I need scarcely say that we’re quite satisfied. We feel——”
“By we,” said Gorman, “you mean yourself and the Emperor, I suppose. Now what I want to know is this: Why is the Emperor so keen on——?”
Steinwitz waved that question away with a motion of his hand.
“I do not discuss the policy of the Emperor,” he said.
“You must be the only man in Europe who doesn’t,” said Gorman. “However, I don’t mind. I suppose the Emperor must have some pretty strong reasons for wanting to get Donovan out of Salissa, or he wouldn’t offer to pay a fancy price—it was a fancy price, you know.”