CHAPTER XIX
Cunningham sat down. “The spirit is willing, Cleigh, but the flesh is weak. You’ll never get my hide. How will you go about it? Stop a moment and mull it over. How are you going to prove that I’ve borrowed the rug and the paintings? These are your choicest possessions. You have many at home worth more, but these things you love. Out of spite, will you inform the British, the French, the Italian governments that you had these objects and that I relieved you of them? In that event you’ll have my hide, but you’ll never set eyes upon the oils again except upon their lawful walls—the rug, never! On the other hand, there is every chance in the world of my returning them to you.”
“Your word?” interrupted Jane, ironically.
So Cleigh was right? A quarter of a million in art treasures!
“My word! I never before realized,” continued Cunningham, “what a fine thing it is to possess something to stand on firmly—a moral plank.”
Dennison’s laughter was sardonic. 233
“Moral plank is good,” was his comment.
“Miss Norman,” said Cunningham, maliciously, “I slept beside the captain this morning, and he snores outrageously.” The rogue tilted his chin and the opal fire leaped into his eyes. “Do you want me to tell you all about the Great Adventure Company, or do you want me to shut up and merely proceed with the company’s business without further ado? Why the devil should I care what you think of me? Still, I do care. I want you to get my point of view—a rollicking adventure, in which nobody loses anything and I have a great desire fulfilled. Hang it, it’s a colossal joke, and in the end the laugh will be on nobody! Even Eisenfeldt will laugh,” he added, enigmatically.