"Must is not a nice word, but——"
"But it's got to be used," Lefroy spoke for the first time. "All these words are so much air. Will you be so good as to lend us the Blue Stone for a time, or——"
"Stop!" Mrs. Benstein cried. "Let us quite understand one another. If I do not lend you the stone you are prepared to go to extreme measures to get it?"
Frobisher nodded and grinned till his teeth flashed again. He advanced with his hands outstretched and a look of greed in his eyes. Lefroy stood by as if apart from the discussion.
"A few more words," Mrs. Benstein said, with a steady smile, "a few more words, and then you may do as you please. I am forced to allude to the conjurer again and his forced card. That card is in the possession of the involuntary medium. The success of the experiment depends upon the ability of the conjurer to force the card when and how he will. But suppose the involuntary ally determines to frustrate the trick, and say that he has lost the card or changed it for another, what then?"
A wicked, brutish oath sprang from Frobisher's lips. All his pretty cynicism and flippant hardness had gone and the original savage looked out of his eyes. Just for a moment he panted with a rage that was unconquerable. He was a murderer in his heart at that moment.
"You mean," he gasped—"you mean to say that you——"
"Precisely. As I said before, I had thought the matter out. Am I the woman to be any man's puppet? The card has disappeared, the conjurer is baffled. If you can find the card, well and good; if not, the trick fails. The card is no longer in my possession."
And Frobisher, looking into her eyes, knew that she spoke the truth.
CHAPTER XXI.