"But it is such an honour to be considered important enough to be treated with at all!"
"You have the true gift for sarcasm: a pity to waste it on an audience two-thirds incapable of appreciation."
"Oh, you're wrong!" Phinuit declared earnestly. "I'm appreciative, I think the dear man's immense."
"Might I suggest"--the unctuous tones of Captain Monk issued from under mildly wounded eyebrows--"if any one of us were unappreciative of Monsieur Lanyard's undoubted talents, he would not be with us tonight."
"You might suggest it," Phinuit assented, "but that wouldn't make it so, it is to mademoiselle's appreciation that you and I owe this treat, and you know it. Now quit cocking those automatic eyebrows at me; you've been doing that ever since we met, and they haven't gone off yet, not once."
Irrepressible, Liane's laughter pealed; and though he couldn't help smiling, Lanyard hastened to offer up himself on the altar of peace.
"But--messieurs!--you interest me so much. Won't you tell me quickly what possible value my poor talents can have found in your sight?"
"You tell him, Monk," Phinuit said irreverently--"I'm no tale-bearer."
Monk elevated his eyebrows above recognition of the impertinence, and offered Lanyard a bow of formidable courtesy.
"They are such, monsieur," he said with that deliberation which becomes a diplomatic personage--"your talents are such that you can, if you will, become invaluable to us."