"We've got a sixty horse-power; but it's not for sale. My father is
even using it himself to-day," said Germaine.

"Perhaps it's the car we saw in the stable-yard," said M. Charolais.

"No; that's a thirty to forty horse-power. It belongs to me. But if
your son really loves rushing hills, as you say, we have a hundred
horse-power car which my father wants to get rid of. Wait; where's
the photograph of it, Sonia? It ought to be here somewhere."

The two girls rose, went to a table set against the wall beyond the
window, and began turning over the papers with which it was loaded
in the search for the photograph. They had barely turned their
backs, when the hand of young Charolais shot out as swiftly as the
tongue of a lizard catching a fly, closed round the silver statuette
on the top of the cabinet beside him, and flashed it into his jacket
pocket.

Charolais was watching the two girls; one would have said that he
had eyes for nothing else, yet, without moving a muscle of his face,
set in its perpetual beaming smile, he hissed in an angry whisper,
"Drop it, you idiot! Put it back!"

The young man scowled askance at him.

"Curse you! Put it back!" hissed Charolais.

The young man's arm shot out with the same quickness, and the
statuette stood in its place.