"Why? You're quite unacquainted with me."

"I don't need to be acquainted with you to know who you are."

"What? Who I am? I'm the Chevalier Maxime d'Estreicher."

"Possibly. But you're also the gentleman who, secretly and without his cousins' knowledge, seeks ... that which he has no right to seek. With what object if not to steal it?"

"And that's your business?"

"Yes."

"On what grounds?"

"It won't be long before you learn."

He made a movement--of anger or contempt? He controlled himself and mumbled: "All the worse for you and all the worse for Saint-Quentin. Goodbye for the present."

Without another word, he bowed and went out.

It was an odd fact, but in this kind of brutal and violent duel, Dorothy had kept so cool that hardly had the door closed before, following her instincts of a street Arab, she indulged in a high kick and pirouetted half across the room. Then, satisfied with herself and the way things were going, she opened a glass-case, took from it a bottle of smelling-salts, and went to Saint-Quentin who was lying back in his easy chair.

"Smell it, old chap."

He sniffed it, began to sneeze, and stuttered: "We're lost!"

"You're a fine fellow, Saint-Quentin! Why do you think we're lost?""He's off to denounce us."

"Undoubtedly he's off to buck up the inquiries about us. But as for denouncing us, for telling what he saw this morning, he daren't do it. If he does, I tell in my turn what I saw."

"All the same, Dorothy, there was no point in telling them of the disappearance of the jewels."

"They were bound to discover it sooner or later. The fact of having been the first to speak of it diverts suspicion."

"Or turns it on to us, Dorothy."

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