“I scarcely think you’ll do that,” she answered. “If you did, we could never come to terms.”
“Come to terms?” he echoed resentfully. “I don’t understand. I’ve no intention of coming to any arrangement with you.”
He was standing before her in the centre of the room, but she watched his every movement narrowly. She saw that he was desperate, and intended to regain possession of the envelope.
“Once again I ask you to give me that paper you have stolen,” he said in a voice that quivered with rage.
“I have already replied, Count Castellani,” she responded, “and I wish you good-afternoon.” Then with her skirts rustling, she bowed and swept past him towards the door.
“No!” he cried, springing forward and arresting her progress in a moment of fury. “You shall not escape like that. Give me the paper, or—or by Heaven, I’ll—”
“Well?” she cried, turning upon him with flashing eyes. “What will you do?”
He drew back abashed.
“I apologise, Contessa,” he said quickly. “But give me back that paper. Remember that you’ve committed a barefaced, unpardonable theft.”
“And you, as Ambassador of Italy, utter barefaced lies every day,” she retorted.