"It is not the right one! It is by no means the right one!" she made reply, backing away from him suddenly, her absinthe-brightened eyes deriding him, her absinthe-sharpened laughter mocking him. "Your thoughts are in
the Bois, cher ami. What is the password of the brotherhood to the cause of Germany, stupid? It is not right, non! non! It is not right!"
The cause of Germany! At the words the truth rushed like a flash of inspiration across Cleek's mind. The cause of Germany! what a dolt he was not to have thought of that before! There was but one phrase ever used for that among the Kaiser's people, and that phrase——
"'To the day!'" he said, with a burst of sudden laughter. "My wits are in the moon to-night, la reine. 'To the day,' of course—'To the day'!" And even before she replied to him, he knew that he had guessed aright.
"Bravo!" she said, with a little hiccough, for the absinthe, of which she had imbibed so freely to-night, was beginning to take hold of her. "A pretty conspirator to forget how to open the door he himself locked! It is well I know thee; it is well it was our word in the beginning, or I had been suspicious, silly! Wait but a moment"—putting her hand to her breast and beginning to unfasten her bodice—"wait but a moment, Monsieur Twitching-Fingers, and the thing shall be in your hand."
The strain, the relief, were all too great for even such nerves as Cleek's, and if he had not laughed aloud, he knew that he must have cheered.
"Oho! you grin because one's fingers blunder with eagerness," hiccoughed Margot, thinking his laughter was for the trouble she had in getting the fastenings of her bodice undone. "Peste, monsieur! may not a lady well be modestly careful when—— Name of the devil! what's that?"
It was the note of a whistle shrilling down the narrow passage without—the passage where Dollops, in Apache garb, had been set on watch; and, hearing it, Cleek clamped his jaws together and breathed hard. A single whistle, short and sharp, such as this, was the signal agreed upon
that the real Clodoche was coming, and that he and Count von Hetzler had already appeared in the square beyond.
"Soul of a sloth! will not that hurry you, la reine?" he said excitedly, in reply to Margot's startled question. "It is the signal Fouchard's son was to give when he and Von Hetzler arrived at the place where I am to meet them. Give me the paper quick! Tear the fastenings, if they will not come undone else. One cannot keep a Von Hetzler waiting like a lackey for a scrap of ribbon and a bit of lace."