'Well, you see,' Sarrasin summed up, 'I happen to have been in Gloria, and know something of what is going on there. I studied the place a little bit before Ericson had left, and I got to know some people. I am what would have been called in other days a soldier of fortune, dear girl, although, Heaven knows! I never made much fortune by my soldiering—you should just ask my wife! But anyhow, you know, when I have been in a foreign country where things are disturbed people send to me and offer me jobs, don't you see? So in that way I found that the powers that be in Gloria at present'—Sarrasin was fond of good old phrases like 'the powers that be'—'the powers that be in Gloria have a terrible dread of Ericson's coming back. I know a lot about it. I can tell you they follow everything that is going on here. They know perfectly well how thick he is with Sir Rupert Langley, the Foreign Secretary, and they fancy that means the support of the English Government in any attempt to return to Gloria. Of course, we know it means nothing of the kind, you and I.'
'Of course, of course,' Dolores said. She did not know in the least whether it did or did not mean the support of the English Government; for her own part, she would have been rather inclined to believe that it did. But Captain Sarrasin evidently wanted an answer, and she hastened to give him the answer which he evidently wanted.
'But they never can understand that,' he added. 'The moment a man dines with a Secretary of State in London they get it into their absurd heads that that means the pledging of the whole Army, Navy, and Reserve Forces of England to any particular cause which the man invited to dinner may be supposed to represent. Here, in nine cases out of ten, the man invited to dinner does not exchange one confidential word with the Secretary of State, and the day but one after the dinner the Secretary of State has forgotten his very existence.'
'Oh, but is that really so?' Dolores asked, in a somewhat aggrieved tone of voice. She was disposed to resent the idea of any Secretary of State so soon forgetting the existence of the Dictator.
'Not in this case, dear girl—not in this case certainly. Sir Rupert and Ericson are great friends; and they say Ericson is going to marry Sir Rupert's daughter.'
'Oh, do they?' Dolores asked earnestly.
'Yes, they do; and the Gloria folk have heard of it already, I can tell you; and in their stupid outsider sort of way they go on as if their little twopenny-halfpenny Republic were being made an occasion for great state alliances on the part of England.'
'What is she like?' Dolores murmured faintly. 'Is she very pretty? Is she young?'
'I am told so,' Sarrasin answered vaguely. To him the youth or beauty of Sir Rupert's daughter was matter of the slightest consideration.
'Told what?' Dolores asked somewhat sharply. 'That she is young and pretty, or that she isn't?'