He had just given me a detailed account of his interview with Sir Bartholomew Bland-Potterton, and a rather picturesque version of the way King Konrad Karl presented his case.
"Do you expect," I said, "to be able to persuade Donovan to sell?"
"Of course not," said Gorman. "I don't even mean to try."
"Gorman," I said, "I'm accustomed more or less to political morality, I mean the morality of politicians. I recognize--everybody must recognize--that you can't be expected to tie yourselves down to the ordinary standards. But----"
"Oh, nothing much. Only you've accepted a Pink Vulture from Megalia and a baronetcy from England as a reward for services you don't mean to render. Now is that quite--quite----?"
Gorman looked at me for a minute without speaking. There was a peculiar twinkle in his eyes.
"If I were you," he said at last, "I'd go back to Ireland for a while. Try Dublin. You have been too long over here. You wouldn't say things like that if you weren't becoming English."
I accepted the rebuke. Gorman was perfectly right. In English public life it is necessary to profess a respect for decency, to make aprons of fig leaves. In Ireland we do without these coverings.
"I shouldn't wonder," said Gorman, "if I got some sort of decoration out of the Emperor too before I'm through with this business. Once these ribbons and stars begin to drop on a man, they come thick and fast, kind of attract each other, I suppose. I wonder," he added with sudden irrelevancy, "what the Emperor's game is. That's what I've been trying to make out all along. Why is he in it?"
"He wants the Island of Salissa restored to the Crown of Megalia," I said. "You've been told that often enough."
"Yes, but why? Why? The island isn't worth having. As well as I can make out it's simply a rock with a little clay sprinkled on top of it. What can it matter to the Emperor who owns the place? It isn't as if it were his originally or as if it would become his. It belongs to Megalia. With all the fuss that's being made you'd think there was a gold mine there."
The puzzle became more complicated and Gorman's curiosity was further whetted before he started for Salissa. After leaving my rooms he went to Cockspur Street and called at the office of the Cyrenian Sea Steam Navigation Company. Steinwitz was expecting him and received him in the most friendly manner.