"I do," said Piers. "I do--everyone does."
O'Bannon glanced at him, and deciding that it wasn't worth while to take him round the circle again let the sentence drop.
"Do you believe in it yourself, Mr. O'Bannon?" asked Lydia, and she stretched out a slim young arm and moved the candle so that she could look straight at him or he at her. "I mean, if you caught some friend smuggling--me, for example--would you be as implacable as if you caught my dressmaker?"
"You know in your heart it never works like that."
"Unfortunately," he answered, "my office does not take me into Federal customs, or you might find I was right."
"The administration of the customs of the United States," Piers began, but his wife interrupted.
"Don't explain it, there's a dear," she said, and oddly enough he didn't.
Lydia was delighted with O'Bannon's challenging tone.
"I wish you were," she said, "because I know you would turn out to be just like everyone else. Or even if you are a superman, Mr. O'Bannon, you couldn't be sure all your underlings were equally noble."
"What you mean is that you habitually bribe customs inspectors."
"No," said Lydia, as one surprised at her own moderation--"no, I don't, for I never much mind paying duty; but if I did mind--well, I must own I have bribed other officers of the law with very satisfactory results."
O'Bannon, looking at her under the shades, thought--and perhaps conveyed his thought to her--that she could bribe him very easily with something more desirable than gold. It was Gore who began carefully to point out to her the risk run by the taker of the bribe.
"You did not think of him, my dear young lady."
"Yes, I did," answered Lydia. "He wanted the money and I wanted the freedom. It was nice for both of us." She glanced at O'Bannon, who was talking to Mrs. Piers as if Lydia didn't exist. She felt no hesitation in interrupting.
"You couldn't put me in prison for that, could you, Mr. O'Bannon?"
"No, I'm afraid not," said O'Bannon, and turned back to Fanny Piers.
After dinner she told Eleanor in strict confidence the story of the bicycle policeman, and made her promise not to tell O'Bannon.
"I shouldn't dream of telling anyone," said Eleanor with her humorous lift of the eyebrows. "I think it's a perfectly disgusting story and represents you at your worst."