She turned her eyes on him, looked at him long and fixedly and, as though unable to escape that opposing will, she said:
“What do you know exactly? What do you know about me?”
“There are many things that I do not know. I do not know your name. But I know....”
She interrupted him with a gesture; and, resolutely, in her turn, dominating the man who was compelling her to speak:
“It doesn’t matter,” she exclaimed. “What you know, after all, is not much and is of no importance. But what are your plans? You offer me your help: with what view? For what work? You have flung yourself headlong into this business; I have been unable to undertake anything without meeting you on my path: you must be contemplating some aim.... What aim?”
“What aim? Upon my word, it seems to me that my conduct....”
“No, no,” she said, emphatically, “no phrases! What you and I want is certainties; and, to achieve them, absolute frankness. I will set you the example. M. Daubrecq possesses a thing of unparalleled value, not in itself, but for what it represents. That thing you know. You have twice held it in your hands. I have twice taken it from you. Well, I am entitled to believe that, when you tried to obtain possession of it, you meant to use the power which you attribute to it and to use it to your own advantage....”
“What makes you say that?”
“Yes, you meant to use it to forward your schemes, in the interest of your own affairs, in accordance with your habits as a....”
“As a burglar and a swindler,” said Lupin, completing the sentence for her.