Tony rapped the table gravely with a teaspoon.
"Order, please," he said, "order! This is no time for misplaced merriment." He turned to Molly. "Don't worry about Guy's feelings," he added kindly. "Say exactly what you think."
"I'm going to," replied Molly with brisk determination. "I'm awfully sorry if I was rude to you, Mr. Oliver; but really you know your plan's a rotter. Do you suppose that even if we got to Valona, these people would allow us to hang about there waiting for something to happen? Why, they would guess what we were up to the very moment they spotted us."
"But we know the time, roughly," protested Jimmy. "We could arrange to reach the place just when the fighting started."
"And what then?" demanded Molly scornfully. "Here you've got a large party of armed men, who are cheerfully ready to murder a whole escort in order to get hold of this girl. Do you really imagine they are going to let us waltz in and pick her up under their noses? Not likely!"
She stopped to take breath.
"I thought I had made it clear," remarked Guy a little chillingly, "that I didn't regard the suggestion as a very safe or hopeful one."
"You did," said Molly, "but you didn't go half far enough. It's a dead certain frost from the very start. We should just be committing suicide without doing any good to anybody."
Guy shrugged his shoulders. "I daresay you're right. The unfortunate point is that there's no alternative."
Molly leaned forward, her blue eyes shining with excitement.