But what about Demaine?
That had got ahead of them, and there was nothing to do but to wait until Demaine should be found. The very moment that he was found they could act and an explanation should be given that would soon cause the mystery to be forgotten. But a silence still surrounded that unlucky name.
Nothing had been heard in the Lobbies, nothing from Scotland Yard. Finally, and more important, Mary Smith herself could tell Dolly nothing, and if she could not, certainly no one else in London could.
She was really fond of her cousin, and for his sake she comforted, and, what was more important, restrained the imprudent Sudie.
As for Ole Man Benson, beyond a natural regret that such an asset as a son-in-law in the Cabinet was still held over as a contingent and that he could not for the moment close upon the option, he took the matter in a calm and philosophical spirit.
CHAPTER XII
“OH Liberty!” says the Bulgarian poet Machinchose in a fine apostrophe, too little known in this country. “Oh Liberty,” etc.
Never had George Mulross Demaine known the sweets of that word in the days when he enjoyed its privilege to the full. Now, as the brilliant dawn of that Wednesday awakened him upon the deep he learned the beauty of Freedom.