O’Hagan shrugged his shoulders impatiently, turning his eye-glass upon the speaker with the air of a wise man weary of folly.
“Will you allow me to advise?” he said, with a certain disdain. “Do they know that?”
“They cannot possibly,” replied the other. “It is what they most fear—eh?”
“Very well, then,” drawled O’Hagan, yawning discreetly under cover of a gloved hand, “they will abandon the pursuit and no attempt will be made upon your private apartments.”
“I do not fear their attempts!” growled the Grand Duke, with truculent contempt.
“My good Duke!” said O’Hagan languidly—“my dear Duke—do you wish every paper in Europe to discuss your affairs? Do you wish all the world to hear of an attempt to burgle your rooms?”
“What! do you think they would dare?”
Captain O’Hagan surveyed him, pebble uplifted, as one surveys a surpassing fool.
“Dare!” he said icily. “Dare! My good, dear Duke—where is your common sense?”
(“That expression marked the psychological moment, Raymond,” he later was good enough to inform me. “I was deliberately tightening the screw. If he submitted. I knew that the man was mine.”)