Garry spoke to Mrs. Gerhardt, a large, pallid, slabby German who might have been somebody’s kitchen maid, but had been born a von.
Later, as dinner was announced, he contrived to speak to Thessalie aside:
“Gerhardt,” he whispered, “doesn’t recognise you, of course.”
“No; I’m not at all apprehensive.”
“Yet, it was on his yacht——”
“He never even looked twice at me. You know what he thought me to be? Very well, he had only social ambitions then. I think that’s all he has now. You see what he got with his Red Eagle,” nodding calmly toward Mrs. Gerhardt, who now was being convoyed out by the monocled martyr in the “stiff shirt.”
The others passed out informally; Lee had slipped her arm around Dulcie. As Garry and Thessalie turned to follow, he said in a low voice:
“You feel quite secure, then, Thessa?”
She halted, put her lips close to his ear, unnoticed by those ahead:
“Perfectly. The Gerhardts are what you call fatheads—easily used by anybody, dangerous to no one, governed by greed alone, without a knowledge of any honour except the German sort. But that Irish dreamer over there, he is dangerous! That type always 319 is. He menaces the success of any enterprise to which his quixotic mind turns, because it instantly becomes a fixed idea with him—an obsession, a monomania!”