Thus it came to pass that while Señor Miguel Figuero was puzzling, even alarming the millionaire yacht–owner with his broken talk of Captain Varden, Dep’ty Commissioner and leader of bush expeditions—alarming him so thoroughly that he never dreamed of associating Miss Evelyn Dane with the Polly Perkins of Peter’s juvenile memories—Arthur Warden himself was driving in a hansom from Waterloo to the Foreign Office, and wondering what new phase of existence would open up before him when his news became known to the men who control the destinies of Outer Britain.
CHAPTER V
A MAN AND A STORY—BOTH UNEMOTIONAL
Warden, running the gauntlet of doorkeepers and other human watch–dogs, was finally ushered into the presence of an Under Secretary. To him he detailed his business, and, lacking neither the perception nor the modesty that often characterize men of action, he had barely begun to speak ere he fancied that his recital did not command a tenth part of the interest it warranted. Few talkers can withstand the apparent boredom of a hearer, and Warden happened not to be one of the few. Condensing his account of the proceedings on board the Sans Souci to the barest summary, he stopped abruptly.
The Under Secretary, leaning back in his chair, rested his elbows on its comfortable arms, and pressed together the tips of his outspread fingers. He scrutinized his nails, and seemingly was much troubled because he had not called in at the manicurist’s after lunch. Nevertheless, being an Under Secretary, he owned suave manners, and the significance of Warden’s docket–like sentences did not escape him.
“Is that all?” he asked, turning his hands and examining their backs intently.
“Practically all.”