I ceased. Language failed me again. Then:
“O’Hagan!” I cried, “what have you done it for?”
“Primarily,” he answered, “for supper! After supper I shall offer the Grand Duke any satisfaction which he may desire. Secondarily, here is the Grand Duke!”
Even as he spoke my mind was busy; and, as I now perceived with consternation, O’Hagan had indeed been “pumping” the Grand Duke—“pumping” him with the cleverness of a very accomplished K.C. I was amazed; amazed that the Siresian should have fallen so easy a victim—that even Bernard O’Hagan should have had the stark effrontery to practise such a deception.
“If you will excuse me for a few moments more,” said the Grand Duke, “I will rejoin you for supper.”
With a cold bow, he left us again.
“O’Hagan!” I burst out——
O’Hagan coughed, and raised his monocle to his eye.
“—I will not, cannot stay!——”
O’Hagan coughed again, more urgently, and, across my left shoulder, seemed to focus something through the pebble.