"Come, _ma chere,_ let us count these things. What is it?
Pocket-book? Or--or--_what?_"
"It is _that_!" said the lady, pointing with a look of disgust to
the box, which lay in its leather case on the table.
"Oh! Let us see--let us count--let us see," he said, as he was
unbuckling the straps with his tremulous fingers. "We must count
them--we must see to it. I have pencil and pocket-book--but--where's the
key? See this cursed lock! My--! What is it? Where's the key?"
He was standing before the Countess, shuffling his feet, with his hands
extended and all his fingers quivering.
"I have not got it; how could I? It is in his pocket, of course," said
the lady.
In another instant the fingers of the old miscreant were in my pockets;
he plucked out everything they contained, and some keys among the rest.
I lay in precisely the state in which I had been during my drive with
the Marquis to Paris. This wretch, I knew, was about to rob me. The
whole drama, and the Countess's _role_ in it, I could not yet
comprehend. I could not be sure--so much more presence of mind and
histrionic resource have women than fall to the lot of our clumsy
sex--whether the return of the Count was not, in truth, a surprise to
her; and this scrutiny of the contents of my strong box, an extempore
undertaking of the Count's.
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