"On the contrary, my dear Sophie," he replied, "they are more inexplicable than ever. Would you believe it that Lord Orrel has actually asked me to go down with him to the port and ask the French and Russian leaders of the expedition to dinner, the invitation to include our excellent friend Victor Fargeau?"
"That is only a plot!" exclaimed the marquise; "a shallow plot to get them into the works and make them prisoners. Of course they will not be so idiotic as to come."
"It is difficult," said the count, "to see how they could refuse such a hospitable offer without at once declaring hostilities. We do not know how the works are defended, or what unknown means of destruction these people may possess, and, to be quite candid, I do not think that our hosts would be guilty of an act of treachery. You know these Anglo-Saxons are always chivalrous to the verge of imbecility. For instance, if the tables had been turned, should we have treated them as they have treated us? I think you will agree with me that we should not. No; I have no fears whatever on that score, and I shall support Lord Orrel's invitation with the most perfect confidence."
CHAPTER XXVIII
Lord Orrel and the count started from the little station just outside the western gate of the works in the private car used by the directors and drawn by a neat little electric engine, which was accustomed to do the four miles in ten minutes.
Meanwhile, Lady Olive had what might, by a stretch of imagination, be called afternoon tea, in that land where it was never quite afternoon or morning, on the western wall looking down towards the harbour. When Miss Chrysie sat down and threw back her afternoon wrap Adelaide and Sophie were disconcerted, if not altogether surprised, to see that she had a light, long-barrelled, wicked-looking pistol hanging by a couple of silver chains from her waist-band.
"My dear Chrysie," said Lady Olive, "what are you carrying that terrible-looking weapon for? You don't expect that you will have to use it, surely," she went on, with just a touch of sarcasm in her tone, "considering what very good friends we have all managed to keep so far?"
"Well, I hope not," said Miss Chrysie, looking round the tables with eyes which had both a laugh and a menace in them. "Of course, it is to be hoped that everything will go off smoothly, but poppa had a friend in the old times who said something that means a lot. He said, 'You don't want a gun often, but when you do want it you want it badly.' Isn't that so, poppa?"
"Just his words, Chrysie," said the president, "just his words; and he knew what he was talking about when he used them. I never met a man who could hold his temper longer or shoot quicker; and when he used a gun someone usually wanted a funeral pretty soon."
"But surely," said Sophie, "you don't suppose for a moment that our expected guests from the expedition will——"