well, but damn it, set a price to it and don't haggle with me!"
"I am not haggling, Monsieur le Président," declared Don Luis, in a very straightforward manner and tone. "What I have to offer you is certainly much more extraordinary and tremendous than you imagine. But if it were twice as extraordinary and twice as tremendous, it would not count once Florence Levasseur's life is in danger. Nevertheless, I was entitled to try for a less expensive transaction. Of this your words remove all hope. I will therefore lay my cards upon the table, as you demand, and as I had made up my mind to do."
He sat down opposite Valenglay, in the attitude of a man treating with another on equal terms.
"I shall not be long. A single sentence, Monsieur le Président, will express the bargain which I am proposing to the Prime Minister of my country."
And, looking Valenglay straight in the eyes, he said slowly, syllable by syllable:
"In exchange for twenty-four hours' liberty and no more, undertaking on my honour to return here to-morrow morning and to return here either with Florence, to give you every proof of her innocence, or without her, to constitute myself a prisoner, I offer you"
He took his time and, in a serious voice, concluded:
"I offer you a kingdom, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
The sentence sounded bombastic and ludicrous, sounded silly enough to provoke a shrug of the shoulders, sounded like one of those sentences which only an imbecile or a lunatic could utter. And yet Valenglay remained impassive. He knew that, in such circumstances as the pres-
