motives than money. Enough
that I stole them and will not tell you where they are."

He changed his line of attack.

"To-morrow I will have you arrested for theft."

"No," she demurred. "You have no proof--no witness. The papers will
_never_ be found unless I choose. Besides, you dare not have me
arrested: you know this is not a police matter."

"True," he admitted, for her knowledge made it useless to bluff. He
paused and thought, Mizzi smiling maliciously from the armchair. The
pendulum of victory was swinging to her and she could afford to smile.
"Look here!" said Lionel, remembering another weapon. "Will you sell me
them? I'll give you your price."

"I will _never_ sell them to you," she said, still with inflexible
determination. "Do not suggest it again, please. It would be a waste of
time."

Lionel was baffled, beaten at every point in the game, and he knew it.
"Confound it!" he thought savagely, "I fancied I held the key of the
situation in my hands, and I am no further on. I am deeper, in fact, for
I know that Mizzi is here and I do not know why.... Ah!" he cried
suddenly, determined to have one thing decided for good and all. "You
have won to-night, I allow--I have no hold on you to make you
confess--but there is one thing that you have done for me--one suspicion
that your presence here has made almost a certainty--one resolution of a
doubt that I can thank you for, however painfully--"

"And that is?" she asked with polite interest.

"This. I have come to the conclusion that the whole business is a game.
I don't understand it in the least, but it's a game none the less, and I
have been a dupe. I am sure now that Miss Blair and Miss Arkwright are
the same person. What do you say to that?"

Mizzi did not so much as flicker an eyelash. She looked at him with a
lazy amusement.

"_Herr Gott!_" she said with a scorn that seared his unbelief forever.
"If you think that you will think anything. Miss Arkwright and Miss
Blair the same!" and she went off into an uncontrollable peal.

Lionel would have dearly liked to shake her, but in the midst of his
defeat he realized with a glow that she had won a Pyrrhic victory. "She
won't tell me what I ask her," he thought deliriously, "but she has
convinced me of Beatrice's innocence. That is something at all events!"
and he, too, began to laugh so infectiously that Mizzi stared in
amazement. They laughed like two good friends, and it was in an
excellent humor that