CHAPTER XII
MOLLY BECOMES AN ALLY
Guy sat in his chair, and for a moment surveyed the admirably kept garden of Goodman's Rest with a thoughtful frown. Then his gaze travelled back to Tony and Isabel.
"We are in an extraordinary situation," he observed slowly.
It was just at half-past ten in the morning, and they were all of them sitting on the lawn at the back of the house, in a pleasant blaze of spring sunshine which streamed down out of a cloudless blue sky. Tony, who was smoking a cigar, had just finished giving his cousin a full and spirited description of his interview with Congosta and Saltero, for by the time he had returned to the house on the previous evening, Guy, who had been suffering from a slight headache, had already gone to bed.
"I don't see anything so very extraordinary about it," said Tony placidly. "Everybody seems to me to be behaving in a most natural and reasonable manner. In fact I am just a bit disappointed. I always thought that people who went in for revolutions and that kind of thing were much more mysterious and exciting."
"Well, I don't know what you want!" retorted Guy. "You appear to have got both the Royalists and the Franciscans on your track, and as far as sticking at trifles goes, I shouldn't imagine there was much to choose between any of the parties in Livadia."
"You must remember that you are speaking of Isabel's native land," protested Tony reprovingly.
"Oh, he can say what he likes about Livadia," said Isabel. "It's all true."
"And anyhow," went on Guy, "if we mean to get out of this business safely and successfully we must look at things exactly as they are and not as they ought to be. As far as I can see the whole affair is more like a cheap melodrama than anything else, but that doesn't mean there isn't a very real danger for people who choose to mix themselves up in it." He paused. "What was your final understanding with these—these people?"