"A wonderful instrument! Not the telephone. The human voice. There are voices which rivet the attention at once—even on the telephone. This was one of them—
"'Northborough is speaking. Is that you Bond? Alfred York is motoring down to see you. He is on his way now. You can put him up for twenty-four, or forty-eight, hours, I suppose? If you get the opportunity, you can tell him, when he arrives, that everything is proceeding in accordance with plan.'"
"You know the Duke of Northborough?" the King gasped.
"Thanks to you, my boy, yes," Uncle Bond chuckled. "Note in passing, that I—with the assistance of Thomas Carlyle—have created an opportunity to tell you that—'everything is proceeding in accordance with plan!' But we must really finish this sweet. No more for you? Another glass of wine, then? You will find that the bottle will run to it, although those long necks are deceptive."
Mechanically, the King filled the wineglasses once again.
For a minute or two, there was silence while Uncle Bond made short work of the remnant of the sweet which the King had refused to share.
This accomplished the little man leant back in his chair.
"When Alfred York, the young and reckless sailor, whose friendship Judith and I have learnt to value so highly in recent months, first showed an unmistakable desire to establish an intimacy with us, I saw no reason why I should—discourage his visits," Uncle Bond resumed with a mischievous chuckle. "Who, and what, our friend Alfred might be elsewhere, how he might fill in his—spare time—elsewhere, it seemed to me—need be—no concern of ours. These were matters to which he never referred. Judith and I might have our own ideas on the subject, we might even have knowledge which he never suspected; but until he spoke, it seemed to me, that there was—no necessity—for us to speak. Our friend Alfred obviously valued the hospitality which we were so glad to offer him. That was enough for us.
"But things happen. The curse, and the charm, of human life in two words—things happen!
"When our friend Alfred suddenly became earmarked for—promotion—high promotion—I had to admit to myself that the situation was, at once, materially changed. So long as our friend Alfred was a person of only—minor importance—his visits to us might, it seemed to me, fairly be considered—merely his own affair, and ours. But when he became a person of—the first importance—of the first importance in greater issues than he appears, as yet, to have realized, his frequent visits here involved me—in a grave responsibility, to which I could not shut my eyes. A reckless young man, our friend Alfred. He did incredible things. He took amazing risks. I had to reconsider the whole position. I will not trouble you with an analysis of my conflicting motives. Ultimately I took action. I wrote a letter.