“Be that as it may,” said Phinuit—­“here in a manner of speaking we all are, at least, the happy family reunited and ready to talk business.”

“And no hard feelings, Monsieur Phinuit?”

“There will be none”—­Monk’s eyebrows were at once sardonic and self-satisfied; which speaks volumes for their versatility—­“at least, none on our side—­when we are finished.”

“That makes me more happy still.  And you, Liane?”

The woman gave a negligent movement of pretty shoulders.

“One begins to see how very right you are, Michael,” she said wearily—­“and always were, for that matter.  If one wishes to do wrong, one should do it all alone... and escape being bored to death by the...  Oh! the unpardonable stupidity of associates.

“But no, messieurs!” she insisted with temper as Monk and Phinuit simultaneously flew signals of resentment.  “I mean what I say.  I wish I had never seen any of you, I am sick of you all!  What did I tell you when you insisted on coming here to see Monsieur Lanyard?  That you would gain nothing and perhaps lose much.  But you would not listen to me, you found it impossible to believe there could be in all the world a man who keeps his word, not only to others but to himself.  You are so lost in admiration of your own cleverness in backing that poor little ship off the rocks and letting her fill and sink, so that there could be no evidence of wrong-doing against you, that you must try to prove your wits once more where they have always failed”—­she illustrated with a dramatic gesture—­“against his!  You say to yourselves:  Since we are wrong, he must be wrong; and since that is now clearly proved, that he is as wrong in every way as we, then it follows naturally that he will heed our threats and surrender to us those jewels...Those jewels!” she declared bitterly, “which we would have been fortunate never to have heard of!”

She threw herself back in her chair and showed them a scornful shoulder, compressing indignant lips to a straight, unlovely line, and beating out the devil’s tattoo with her slipper.

Lanyard watched her with a puzzled smile.  How much of this was acting?  How much, if anything, an expression of true feeling?  Was she actually persuaded it was waste of time to contend against him?  Or was she shrewdly playing upon his not unfriendly disposition toward her in the hope that it would spare her in the hour of the grand debacle?

He could be sure of one thing only:  since she was a woman, he would never know...

Monk had been making ominous motions with the eyebrows, but Phinuit made haste to be beforehand with him.

“You said one thing, mademoiselle, one thing anyway that meant something:  that Monsieur Lanyard would give up those jewels to us.  That’s all arranged.”

Lanyard turned to him with genuine amusement.  “Indeed, monsieur?”

“Indeed and everything!  We don’t want to pull any rough stuff on you, Lanyard, and we won’t unless you force us to—­”