Sir Terence is ridiculously secretive,"
she assured him, with a little frown of petulance. She realised
that her husband did not treat her as an intelligent being to be
consulted upon these matters. She was his wife, and he had no right
to keep secrets from her. In fact she said so.
"Indeed no," Samoval agreed. "And I find it hard to credit that it
should be so."
"Then you forget," said Sylvia, "that these secrets are not Sir
Terence's own. They are the secrets of his office."
"Perhaps so," said the unabashed Samoval. "But if I were Sir
Terence I should desire above all to allay my wife's natural anxiety.
For I am sure you must be anxious, dear Lady O'Moy."'
"Naturally," she agreed, whose anxieties never transcended the fit
of her gowns or the suitability of a coiffure. "But Terence is like
that."
"Incredible!" the Count protested, and raised his dark eyes to
heaven as if invoking its punishment upon so unnatural a husband.
"Do you tell me that you have never so much as seen the plans of
these fortifications? "
"The plans, Count!" She almost laughed.
"Ah!" he said. "I dare swear then that you do not even know of
their existence." He was jocular now.
"I am sure that she does not," said Sylvia, who instinctively felt
that the conversation was following an undesirable course.
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