"You're the most irritating middle-aged man in France."
My companion shrugged his shoulders, smiled for a moment, and then leaned towards me. "I did not steal it, and Gaspard did not." He raised his eyebrows.
"Hun Sun stole it himself."
"Precisely my own opinion," Monsieur Roché murmured, appreciatively. "He, although a chosen envoy to France, is against us. He was bound to deliver his message, but in the same instant he rendered it futile. We cannot own that we have lost the seal, and without it we cannot accept."
"And your object in seeking me at such an hour is to ask me to regain the seal?"
"Yes, ma chère, you are the one woman in the world who is brilliant enough to do it, because—"
"Not so much sugar, if you please, monsieur. Thank you;" and I took my cup from his hand, leaving him to apply my remark in its double sense, and smiled with satisfaction because I noticed that Paul was cutting figures and flourishes in solitude. I knew that empty-headed woman would bore him.
"But I may count upon your assistance?" Monsieur le Premier plaintively interjected.
"To regain the seal is utterly impossible," I quietly answered.
"Impossible?"