"What is it?"
She held out the palm of her hand.
"What? Money? . . . Is she in the habit of begging?" he asked the count.
"No," said Waldemar, "and I can't understand."
Isilda took two gold coins from her pocket and chinked them together, gleefully.
Lupin looked at them. They were French coins, quite new, bearing the date of that year.
"Where did you get these?" asked Lupin, excitedly.
"French money! . . . Who gave it you? . . . And when? . . . Was it to-day? Speak! . . . Answer! . . ." He shrugged his shoulders. "Fool that I am! As though she could answer! . . . My dear count, would you mind lending me forty marks? . . . Thanks . . . Here, Isilda, that's for you."
She took the two coins, jingled them with the others in the palm of her hand and then, putting out her arm, pointed to the ruins of the Renascence palace, with a gesture that seemed to call attention more particularly to the left wing and to the top of that wing.
Was it a mechanical movement? Or must it be looked upon as a grateful acknowledgment for the two gold coins?