“The box you gave me,” said Barbara very quietly, “was stolen from me by the person who... who murdered my father!”
Nur-el-Din burst into a peal of malicious laughter.
“And you?” she cried, “you are ’ere to sell it back to me, hein, or to get your blood money from your accomplice? Which is it?”
On this Barbara’s self-control abandoned her.
“Oh, how dare you! How dare you!” she exclaimed, bursting into tears, “when that wretched box you made me take was the means of my losing the dearest friend I ever had!”
Nur-el-Din thrust her face, distorted with passion, into Barbara’s. She spoke in rapid French, in a low, menacing voice.
“Do you think this play-acting will deceive me? Do you think I don’t know the value of the treasure I was fool enough to entrust to your safe keeping? Grand Dieu! I must have been mad not to have remembered that no woman could resist the price that they were willing to pay for it! And to think what I have risked for it! Is all my sacrifice to have been in vain?”
Her voice rose to a note of pleading and the tears started from her eyes. Her mood changed. She began to wheedle.
“Come, ma petite, you will help me recover my little box, n’est-ce pas? You will find me generous. And I am rich, I have great savings. I can...”
Barbara put up her hands and pushed the dancer away from her.