“And what is your inference?” he asked.
“It’s rather more than an inference, isn’t it?” she laughed; “I should call it a sequitur:—that he who has the Book’s blotter, has the Book.”
She had expected either cool ridicule or angry denial; instead, he laughed, too, and coming around to her, gave her an admiring little caress.
“You’re quite too clever, Madeline,” he said; “it is a sequitur, but unfortunately it’s not the fact—now. I haven’t the Book; I did have it, and I know where it is, but I can’t get it.”
“You had it—and let it get away?” she marveled.
“Yes.”
“And know where it is, and yet can’t get it?”
“Yes, again.”
“Surely! surely! it can’t be that I am listening to the Duke of Lotzen!... But, of course, you know what the decree is.”
And now he lied, and so easily and promptly that even she did not suspect.