"Not yet," she answered. "But one may expect them at any minute."
"Where is the fragment we already possess?"
"Here," tapping her bodice and laughing, "tenderly shielded, mon ami; and why not? Who would not mother a thing that is to bring one four hundred thousand francs?"
"Let me see it? It must be shown to the count, remember. He will take no risks, come not one step beyond the square, until he is certain that it is the paper his Government requires. Let me have it. Let me take it to him—quick!"
She waved aside airily the hand he stretched toward her, and danced into the thick of the resumed quadrille.
"Ah, non! non! non!" she laughed, as he came after her. "The conditions were of your own making, cher ami; we break no rules even among ourselves."
"Soul of a fool! But if the count comes to the square—he is due there now, mignonne—and I am not there to show him the thing—— Margot, for the love of God, let me have the paper!"
"Let me have the sign, the password!"
Cleek snapped at a desperate chance because there was nothing else to do, because he knew that at any moment now the end might come.
"'When the purse will not open, slit it!'" he hazarded, desperately—choosing, on the off-chance of its correctness, the password of the Apache.