It was supplanted by a look more ominously purposeful, more grimly determined.
"What, madam, did you come here for?" he demanded.
She shrugged an apparently careless shoulder.
"His Highness, the Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff, has always been the recipient of much flattering attention!" She found it still safest to mock him.
"We have had enough of this! What is it? Money? Or jewelry?"
She spurned the leather bag on the floor with the toe of her shoe. He could hear the clink and rattle of the napoleons that followed the movement. He started suddenly forward and bent over the broken despatch box. His long white fingers were running dexterously through the once orderly little packets.
"Or something more important?" he went on, as he came to the end of his stock.
Then he gave a little half-cry, half-gasp; and from the look on his face the woman saw that he realized what was missing. He peered at her, with alert and narrow eyes, for a full minute of unbroken silence. Then, with a little movement of finality, he turned away and put down the lamp.
"I regret it, but I must ask you for this—this document, without equivocation and without delay."
She opened her lips to speak, but he cut in before any sound fell from them.