ng with more than normal quickness. Her cheeks were white, her
nostrils dilated and quivering, her blue eyes baleful and cruel, whilst
her lips wore never so faint a smile. For a second La Boulaye looked the
very picture of foolishness and alarm. Then it seemed as if he drew a
curtain, and his face assumed the expressionless mask that was habitual
to it in moments of great tension. Instinctively he put behind him his
hands which held the paper. Cecile's lips took on an added curl of scorn
as she observed the act.

"You thief!" she said, very low, but very fiercely. "That was the paper
that you left behind you, was it?"

"The paper that I have is certainly the paper that I left behind," he
answered serenely, for he had himself well in hand by now. "And as
for dubbing me a thief so readily"--he paused, and shrugged his
shoulders--"you are a woman," he concluded, with an air suggesting that
that fact was a conclusion to all things.

"Fool!" she blazed. "Do you think to overcome me by quibbles? Do you
think to dupe me with words and shrugs?"

"My dear Cecile" he begged half-whimsically, "may I implore you to use
some restraint? Inured as I am to the unbounded licence of your tongue
and to the abandon that seems so inherent in you, let me assure you
that--"

"Ah! You can say Cecile now?" she cried, leaving the remainder of his
speech unheeded. "Now that you need me; now that you want me to be a
party to your treacherous designs against my uncle. Oh, you can say
'Cecile' and 'dear Cecile' instead of your everlasting 'Citoyenne'.

"It seems I am doomed to be always misunderstood by you," he laughed,
and at the sound she started as if he had struck her.

Had she but looked in his eyes she had seen no laughter there; she might
have realised that murder rather than mirth was in his soul--for, at all
costs, he was determined to hold the paper he had been at such pains to
get.

"I understand you well enough," she cried hotly, her cheeks flaming red
of a sudden. "I understand you, you thief, you trickster. Do you think
that I heard nothing of what passed this morning between my uncle and
you? Do you think I do not know whose name you have written on that
paper? Answer me," she commanded him.

"Since you know so much, what need for any questions?" quoth he coolly,
transferring the coveted paper to his pocket as he spoke. "And since
we are so far agreed that I am not contradicting anything you say--nor,
indeed, intend to--p