"I pay what I owe—always.... Always! Do you understand?"
The Harlequin bowed again in arabesques, very low, yet with a singular and almost devilish grace:
"Madame concedes that the poor Harlequin has won his wager?"
"Yes, I do—and you don't appear to be particularly humble, either."
"Madame insists on paying?" he inquired suavely.
"Yes, of course I do!" she said, uneasily. "I promised you an hour out of my life. Am I to pay it now?"
"You pay by the minute—one minute a day for sixty days. I am going to take the first minute now. Perhaps I may ask for the other fifty-nine, also."
"How?"
"Shall I show you how?"
"Very well."