Major Callahan swayed his glass back and forth under his nose. "Smells like a vineyard after a rain.
"There's poetry for you!" laughed the butler.
Mrs. Chedsoye alone seemed absorbed in other things. She was trying to discover what it was that gave this supreme moment so flat a taste. It was always so; it was the chase, the goal was nothing. It was the excitement of going toward, not arriving at, the destination. Was she, who considered herself so perfect, a freak after all, shallow like a hill-stream and as aimless in her endeavors? Had she possessed a real enthusiasm for anything? She looked back along the twisted avenue of years. Had anything really stirred her profoundly? From the bags of gold her glance strayed up and over to Ryanne. Love? Love a man so weak that he could not let be the bottle? She had a horror of drunkenness, the inane giggles, the attending nausea; she had been through it all. Had she loved him, or was it because he loved the child? Even this she could not tell. Inwardly she was opaque to her searchings. She stirred restlessly. She wanted to be out of this house, on the way. The gold, as gold, meant nothing. She had enough for her needs. What was it, then? Was she mad? What flung her here and about, without real purpose?
"We could have taken every dollar from the vault," said Wallace cheerfully.
"But we couldn't have made our get-away with it," observed the butler, holding his empty glass toward Ryanne, who was acting as master of ceremonies.
"A clear, unidentified million," mused Ryanne. "Into the cars with it; over to Jersey City; on to Philadelphia; but there for Europe; quietly transfer the gold to the various Continental banks; and in six months, who could trace hair or hide of it?" Ryanne laughed.
"It's all right to laugh," said the Major. "But are you sure about Jones? He could have arrived this afternoon."
"Impossible! He left Alexandria for Naples on a boat that stopped but thirty hours. With Fortune on his hands he could not possibly sail before the following week, and maybe not then. Sit tight. I know what I am talking about."
"He might cable."