“If I could give more——”
“You have given more.”
“I’d give it.”
“Won’t Grimes make a friendly advance? But I suppose you’re up to the neck with Grimes.... I wonder what interest that little swindler charges you.”
The old lady could not meet the mild scrutiny of his eye. “You come here and grin and mock while your country is being handed over to a gang of God-knows-whos!” she said, staring at her inkpot.
“To whom probably it belongs as much as it does to me,” said Oswald.
“Thank God the army is sound,” said Aunt Charlotte. “Thank God this doesn’t end with your Parliaments! Mark my words, Oswald! On the day they raise their Home Rule flag in Ireland there will be men shot down—men shot down. A grim lesson.”
“Some perhaps killed by your own particular cheques,” said Oswald. “Who knows?”
“I hope so,” said Lady Charlotte, with a quiver of deep passion in her voice. “I hope so sincerely. If I could think I had caused the death of one of those traitors.... If it could be Lloyd George!”...
But that was too much apparently even for Lady Charlotte to hope for.