"All right, all right," growled Fandor, "take it."
She then handed him a pen and asked him to write a dedication.
"No, I'll be hanged if I do," cried Fandor. Then seeing that the young girl was beginning to cry again, he added:
"My dear Marie Pascal, I am very sorry but it is against the rule for me to write a single word on my portrait.... It is against the Constitution." The journalist searched through his pockets to find something he might give her as compensation, and then clasped her to his heart as the only thing possible to do under the circumstances. At this moment a servant entered and gravely announced:
"Sire, Wulfenmimenglaschk is here." Had the sun or the moon or the King himself been announced Fandor's amazement would not have been greater. Marie Pascal was about to slip away embarrassed, hardly capable of leaving in so much happiness, when Fandor recalled her.
"Mademoiselle!"
"Sire!"
"What you told me just now about the torn lace you had better repeat at police headquarters." Then in a lower tone he continued his instructions. When he had finished she nodded her head.
Yes, she would go and find Juve, the detective Juve, as the King had ordered her, and she would tell him everything.
The servant was waiting motionless for the King's answer.