“Nor has Ralph d’Andresy finished with her,” he said quickly.
“Scoundrel!” she muttered. “You deserve——”
“A bullet through my head,” he said, laughing. “It’s out of the question.”
“Don’t you defy me too far, Ralph!”
“It’s out of the question, I tell you,” he repeated. “I am literally sacred. I am the gentleman who stands for a thousand millions. Destroy me and the thousand millions slip through your fingers, O daughter of Cagliostro! Every cell in my brain corresponds to a precious stone. A little bullet hole in it and you will call in vain on the spirit of your father! Not a sou for little Josine! I repeat, my darling, that I am taboo, as they say in Polynesia. Taboo from head to foot! Go down on your knees and kiss my hand. That’s the best thing you can possibly do.”
He opened the window which looked over the enclosure, took a deep breath, and said: “This place is perfectly suffocating. Leonard has a decidedly musty smell. Do you make a point of your executioner’s keeping his hand on that revolver in his pocket?”
She stamped her foot and exclaimed: “Enough of this fooling! You laid down your conditions; you know mine.”
“Your money or your life!”
“Speak, and speak at once!”
“What a hurry you’re in!” he said in a mocking voice. “In the first place I fixed a delay of twenty minutes, to be quite sure that Clarice should be out of reach of your claws; and it is not nearly twenty minutes since she went. Besides——”