short quick steps into the room toward me, and placed his glasses to his eyes.
"Monsieur Beckett," he cried sharply, two or three times, "Hi! don't you know me?"
He approached and peered more closely in my face; raised my hand and shook it, calling me again, then let it drop, and said—"It has set in admirably, my pretty mignonne. When did it commence?"
The Countess came and stood beside him, and looked at me steadily for some seconds.
You can't conceive the effect of the silent gaze of those two pairs of evil eyes. The lady glanced to where, I recollected, the mantel-piece stood, and upon it a clock, the regular click of which I sharply heard.
"Four—five—six minutes and a half," she said slowly, in a cold hard way.
"Brava! Bravissima! my beautiful queen!
