‘Well?’ she muttered between her teeth.
‘Your price, man? Your price?’
‘I am coming to it now, Mademoiselle,’ I said gravely. ‘It is a simple matter. You remember the afternoon when I followed you—clumsily and thoughtlessly perhaps—through the wood to restore these things? In seeming that happened about a month ago. I believe that it happened the day before yesterday. You called me then some very harsh names, which I will not hurt you by repeating. The only price I ask for the restoration of your jewels is that you on your part recall those names.’
‘How?’ she muttered. ‘I do not understand.’
I repeated my words very slowly. ‘The only price or reward I ask, Mademoiselle, is that you take back those names and say that they were not deserved.’
‘And the jewels?’ she exclaimed hoarsely.
‘They are yours. They are not mine. They are nothing to me. Take them, and say that you do not think of me—Nay, I cannot say the words, Mademoiselle.’
‘But there is something—else! What else?’ she cried, her head thrown back, her eyes, bright as any wild animal’s, searching mine. ‘Ha! my brother? What of him? What of him, sir?’
‘For him, Mademoiselle—I would prefer that you should tell me no more than I know already,’ I answered in a low voice. ‘I do not wish to be in that affair. But yes; there is one thing I have not mentioned. You are right.’
She sighed so deeply that I caught the sound.