Evander had an inkling that, if he were to mention it to Caroline later that he had mentioned her to the Minister, she would probably take it well in stride. She would probably be delighted to speak to the Minister, actually; if not in so mercenary a social-climbing way, then at the very least in curiosity. (She had rather a lot of curiosity, he thought – a little too much curiosity, and not quite enough reverence for things. The ‘Minister’; he could not imagine her being daunted in the slightest by any sort of title, somehow.)
“Well, I suppose I ought to thank you for your quick response to the disaster,” Evander remarked, half-sincere and half-dry (if only because Minister Ross was probably tired of thanks, and tired of talking about it altogether by now); but he would not have said it if he did not earnestly mean it. (Imagine if the Portuguese Ministry had been left to coordinate the rescue efforts! There would be lifeboats still drifting around out there.) “And my brother, of course,” Evander added, half an afterthought – and of course he had thanked Alfred since, had revised his opinions of the worth of his career, but mostly, right now, he didn’t want to sound as though he wasn’t appropriately proud.
“Well, I suppose I ought to thank you for your quick response to the disaster,” Evander remarked, half-sincere and half-dry (if only because Minister Ross was probably tired of thanks, and tired of talking about it altogether by now); but he would not have said it if he did not earnestly mean it. (Imagine if the Portuguese Ministry had been left to coordinate the rescue efforts! There would be lifeboats still drifting around out there.) “And my brother, of course,” Evander added, half an afterthought – and of course he had thanked Alfred since, had revised his opinions of the worth of his career, but mostly, right now, he didn’t want to sound as though he wasn’t appropriately proud.
