Madame de Santos bounds to the side of the defeated woman. "If you are lying, beware!" she hisses. Her hand is raised. There is a dagger flashing in the air. Villa Rocca wrests it from the raging woman's hand. "No folly, Madame! She speaks the truth!"
Marie stubbornly tells of her repulse. Josephine was "not alone!" Blunt Aristide elbowed her out of the house, saying:
"Be off with you! The girl is gone! If you want to know where she is, apply to the police. Now, don't show your lying face here again! I will have you arrested! You are a child stealer! You and your ruffian had better never darken this door. Go!"
Natalie de Santos sinks back in her chair. Her teeth are chattering. A cordial restores her nerves. Count Villa Rocca lingers, moody and silent.
What powerful adversary has baffled them?
"Marie, await me in my room!" commands Natalie. In five minutes the roll of rubber-tired wheels proves that madame and the count have gone out. "To the opera?" "To the theatre?" The sly maid does not follow them. Her brain burns with a mad thirst for vengeance. Her hoard must now be completed. "Has she been tricked?" "Thousand devils, no!"
Softly moving over the driveway, Natalie eagerly pleads with Villa Rocca. Her perfumed hair brushes his cheek. Her eyes gleam like diamonds, as they sweep past the brilliantly lighted temples of pleasure. She is Phryne and Aspasia to-night.
Villa Rocca is drunk with the delirium of passion. His mind reels.
"I will do it," he hoarsely murmurs. Arrived at the "porte cochŠre," the count lifts his hat, as madame reenters her home.
There is a fatal glitter in Natalie's eyes, as she enters alone her robing room.