“No, I think not,” said the President with a yawn like an unobtrusive earthquake. “Leave it as it is. Let Saturday settle it. I must be off. Breakfast here next Sunday.”
But the late loud scenes had whipped up the almost naked nerves of the Secretary. He was one of those men who are conscientious even in crime.
“I must protest, President, that the thing is irregular,” he said. “It is a fundamental rule of our society that all plans shall be debated in full council. Of course, I fully appreciate your forethought when in the actual presence of a traitor—”
“Secretary,” said the President seriously, “if you’d take your head home and boil it for a turnip it might be useful. I can’t say. But it might.”
The Secretary reared back in a kind of equine anger.
“I really fail to understand—” he began in high offense.
“That’s it, that’s it,” said the President, nodding a great many times. “That’s where you fail right enough. You fail to understand. Why, you dancing donkey,” he roared, rising, “you didn’t want to be overheard by a spy, didn’t you? How do you know you aren’t overheard now?”
And with these words he shouldered his way out of the room, shaking with incomprehensible scorn.
Four of the men left behind gaped after him without any apparent glimmering of his meaning. Syme alone had even a glimmering, and such as it was it froze him to the bone. If the last words of the President meant anything, they meant that he had not after all passed unsuspected. They meant that while Sunday could not denounce him like Gogol, he still could not trust him like the others.
The other four got to their feet grumbling more or less, and betook themselves elsewhere to find lunch, for it was already well past midday.