"Perhaps. I may have stolen them for other motives than money. Enough that I stole them and will not tell you where they are."
He changed his line of attack.
"To-morrow I will have you arrested for theft."
"No," she demurred. "You have no proof—no witness. The papers will never be found unless I choose. Besides, you dare not have me arrested: you know this is not a police matter."
"True," he admitted, for her knowledge made it useless to bluff. He paused and thought, Mizzi smiling maliciously from the armchair. The pendulum of victory was swinging to her and she could afford to smile. "Look here!" said Lionel, remembering another weapon. "Will you sell me them? I'll give you your price."
"I will never sell them to you," she said, still with inflexible determination. "Do not suggest it again, please. It would be a waste of time."
Lionel was baffled, beaten at every point in the game, and he knew it. "Confound it!" he thought savagely, "I fancied I held the key of the situation in my hands, and I am no further on. I am deeper, in fact, for I know that Mizzi is here and I do not know why.... Ah!" he cried suddenly, determined to have one thing decided for good and all. "You have won to-night, I allow—I have no hold on you to make you confess—but there is one thing that you have done for me—one suspicion that your presence here has made almost a certainty—one resolution of a doubt that I can thank you for, however painfully—"
"And that is?" she asked with polite interest.
"This. I have come to the conclusion that the whole business is a game. I don't understand it in the least, but it's a game none the less, and I have been a dupe. I am sure now that Miss Blair and Miss Arkwright are the same person. What do you say to that?"
Mizzi did not so much as flicker an eyelash. She looked at him with a lazy amusement.