It was a silent declaration of aristocracy, typically and peculiarly O’Haganish.
A faint shade of difference crept into the Grand Duke’s voice. I doubt if the man has lived, since Napoleon Buonaparte, who, meeting Captain the Honble. Bernard O’Hagan, could have escaped enmeshment within his catholic patronage. O’Hagan would patronize the shade of Julius Cæsar.
“What,” inquired the Grand Duke awkwardly, “do you propose?”
“First,” said my friend, holding his monocle between second and third fingers, and waving it roofward, “extinguish these interior lights. It was most indiscreet to travel so publicly.”
Association with Bernard O’Hagan renders one more or less accustomed to the outre. The amazing ceases to amaze, the appalling to appal; wonders lose their potency, and one’s pulse remains normal amid singular adventures.
It afforded me small surprise to see my friend’s injunction instantly obeyed. (It would afford me small surprise to see the Premier blacking O’Hagan’s boots.)
“Next,” continued the Captain, “direct your man to drive to your embassy.”
The obedient Grand Duke bent forward and called gutturally into the tube.
(“There is one thing,” O’Hagan tells me, “which a nobleman of the Grand Duke’s race can never appreciate—the doctrine of aristocratic equality. He must always dominate or be dominated. My ancestor, Patrick, had this from the lips of Cardinal Richelieu—a singularly shrewd observer, Raymond, and a gentleman.”)
“I have no intention,” resumed the Grand Duke, “of handing them over to the ambassador.”