The Countess came and stood beside him, and looked at me steadily for some seconds. You can't conceive the effect of the silent gaze of those two pairs of evil eyes.
The lady glanced to where, I recollected, the mantel piece stood, and upon it a clock, the regular click of which I sharply heard. "Four—five—six minutes and a half," she said slowly, in a cold hard way.
"Brava! Bravissima! my beautiful queen! my little Venus! my Joan of Arc! my heroine! my paragon of women!"
He was gloating on me with an odious curiosity, smiling, as he groped backward with his thin brown fingers to find the lady's hand; but she, not (I dare say) caring for his caresses, drew back a little.
"Come, ma chère, let us count these things. What is it? Pocket-book? Or—or—what?"
"It is that!" said the lady, pointing with a look of disgust to the box, which lay in its leather case on the table.
"Oh! Let us see—let us count—let us see," he said, as he was unbuckling the straps with his tremulous fingers. "We must count them—we must see to it. I have pencil and pocket-book—but—where's the key? See this cursed lock! My—! What is it? Where's the key?"
He was standing before the Countess, shuffling his feet, with his hands extended and all his fingers quivering.
"I have not got it; how could I? It is in his pocket, of course," said the lady.
In another instant the fingers of the old miscreant were in my pockets; he plucked out everything they contained, and some keys among the rest.