Gorman's position was an exceedingly difficult one. Madame Ypsilante had firm hold on his hand. She was kissing it at the moment. He was not at all sure that she would not bite it if he refused her request.
"I'll think the whole thing over," he said. "I don't expect I can do anything, but I'll look into the matter and let you know."
Madame mouthed his hand in a frenzy of gratitude. She wept copiously. Gorman could feel drops which he supposed to be tears trickling down the inside of his sleeve. The King seized his other hand and shook it heartily.
"It is now as good as done," he said. "Let us drink to success. I ring the bell. I order champagne, one bottle, two bottles, three, many bottles in the honour of my friend Sir Gorman who has said: 'Damn it, I will.'"
Under the influence of the second bottle of champagne the King escaped from his heroic mood. Gorman began to realize that a certain cunning lay behind the preposterous proposal he had listened to.
"I shall inform the Emperor," said the King, "that you go to Salissa to arrange according to his wish. I shall say: 'M.P. Count Sir Gorman goes. He is a statesman, a financier, a diplomat, a man of uncommon sense.' The Emperor will then be satisfied."
"He'll probably be very dissatisfied when I come back," said Gorman.
"That will be--let me consider--perhaps eight weeks. In eight weeks many things may happen. And if not, still Corinne and I will have had eight weeks in Paris with oof which we can burn. It is something."
In the end Gorman made up his mind to go to Salissa. I do not suppose that the King's gift of the Order of the Pink Vulture had much to do with his decision. Nor do I think that he went out of pure kindness of heart, in order to give Konrad Karl and Madame Ypsilante eight weeks of unalloyed delight in Paris. I know that he never had the slightest intention of trying to persuade Donovan to part with the island, and--Gorman has not much conscience, but he has some--nothing would have induced him to suggest a marriage between Miss Daisy and the disreputable King. He went to Salissa because that island seemed in a fair way to become a very interesting place.
On the very evening of Gorman's dinner with the King I happened to meet Sir Bartholomew Bland-Potterton at another, a much duller dinner party. Sir Bartholomew was not yet Secretary of State for Balkan Problems, but he was well known as an authority on the Near East, and was in constant unofficial touch with the Foreign Office. He is a big man in his way, and I was rather surprised when he buttonholed me after the ladies had left the room. I am not a big man in any way.