"Curse you, you little merveilleuse! If you think my credit is so ruined that it is safe to flout me, you are mistaken."
"Insults!"
"You are right, let us reason coldly. Who knows if this whole affair was not a political coup; if the minister, furious to see me in the opposition, has not plotted with de Brie to ruin me?"
"Monsieur," said the baroness humbly. "You are, I think, aware, that the employee who transmitted the code was fired, and would have been arrested, save that he had I know not what ring and burned the gendarmes to cinders."
"The usual excuses of the ministry. They become more imaginative every day."
"But why then do you not speak to M. De Brie?"
"Do I know him? Do I wish to? Do I gamble on the stock exchange? The black pits take this filthy ministry!"
"But since you profit therefrom..."
