Ma foi! it's lucky these jeweller folk know no French."

M. Etienne was himself again, all smiles and quick pleasantries. I
slipped off to my post in the background, trying to get out of the eye
of Mlle. de Tavanne, who had been staring at me the last five minutes in
a way that made my goose-flesh rise, so suspicious, so probing, was it.
On my retreat she did indeed move her gaze from me, but only to watch M.
le Comte as a hound watches a thicket. It was a miracle that none had
pounced on him before, so reckless had he been. I perceived with
sickening certainty that Mlle. de Tavanne had guessed something amiss.
She fairly bristled with suspicion, with knowledge. I waited from
breathless moment to moment for announcement. There was nothing to be
done; she held us in the hollow of her hand. We could not flee, we could
not fight. We could do nothing but wait quietly till she spoke, and then
submit quietly to arrest; later, most like, to death.

Minute followed minute, and still she did not speak. Hope flowed back to
me again; perhaps, after all, we might escape. I wondered how high were
the windows from the ground.

As I stole across the room to see, Mlle. de Tavanne detached herself
from the group and glided unnoticed out of the door.

It was thirty feet to the stones below--sure death that way. But she had
given us a respite; something might yet be done. I seized M. Etienne's
arm in a grip that should tell him how serious was our pass.
Remembering, for a marvel, my foreign tongue, I bespoke him:

"Brother, it grows late. We must go. It will soon be dark. We must go
now--now!"

He turned on me with an impatient frown, but before he could answer,
Mme. de Montpensier cried, with a laugh:

"And do you fear the dark, wench? Marry, you look as if you could take
care of yourself."

"Nay, madame," I protested, "but the box. Come, Giovanni. If we linger,
we may be robbed in the dark streets."

"Why, my sister, where are your manners?" he retorted, striving to shake
me off. "The ladies have not yet dismissed me."

"We shall be robbed of the box," I persisted; "and the night air is bad
for your health, my Nino. If you stay longer you will have trouble in
the throat."

He looked at me hard. I tried to make my eyes tell him that my fear was
no vague one of the streets, that his throat was in peril here and now.
He understood; he cried with merry laughter to Mme. de Montpensier:

"Pray excuse her lack of manners, duches