Kate Plus 10 · Chapter 4 (2/2)

“There is no end to her energy,” he went on; “sometimes I think she is dangerous and then when I come to consider all things it is impossible to say that she can be. After all, hers is only the plan. The responsibility for the bungling is with us⁠—the plan is so perfect that you can hardly pick a hole in it. She works out to the last minute detail the chronology of a coup, she dresses it, rehearses it. She never fails. Yes, it was Rahboulla,” he agreed, “and I was wrong to kick. What was it she called me, a ‘centre forward’ and a ‘dago,’ ” he laughed softly.

“She is very young,” said the Colonel apologetically, “and a little impetuous of speech⁠—she talks too much, I think.”

“A pretty woman can never talk too much,” said the gallant Gregori; “she can think too much and talk too little. A person who talks is like a lighted house with all the blinds up and the doors open, you know where you are. Now, Colonel mio, how far have we got with this new scheme?”

The Colonel brought a chair in one hand and a light table in the other to where the Spaniard sat, produced from his inside-pocket a bunch of memoranda and in a few minutes the men were deep in the discussion of the most remarkable, the most startling and the most daring enterprise that Crime Street had ever undertaken.