“Besides, how can you expect me to solve in five seconds the problem that so many people have been nearly bursting themselves in their efforts to solve for years and years?” She was immensely taken aback and cried fiercely: “What do you mean?” “My meaning is quite simple. I want a little time for reflection.” “Reflection? What for?” “To get the solution,” he said coolly. “What? You don’t know it?” “The key-word to the enigma? Of course I don’t.” “Then you lied!” “Don’t let’s get theatrical, Josephine,” he said again in a tone of mockery. “You lied, because you swore----” “By the tomb of my poor mother,” he said, smiling. “And I stick to it. But you must not get things mixed up. I did not swear that I knew the truth, I swore that I would tell you the truth.” “To tell it, you must know it.” “To know one must reflect, and you don’t give me any time! Let’s have a little silence, please! And first of all, let Leonard loose the butt of his revolver. It puts me off.” Even more than his jokes, the tone of insolent mockery in which he uttered them set Josephine’s teeth on edge. She felt herself surpassed, and realizing the danger to her vanity she said: “Take your time about it. I know you. You will keep your promise.” “Ah! You’re going to try kindness on me! I never could resist kindness.... Boy, writing materials! Fine hand-made paper, a pen made out of a hummingbird’s quill, the blood of a full-grown negress, and a piece of candied peel, as the poet says.” He drew the pencil from his pocket-book and a visiting-card on which some words were already written in a particular order. He drew some lines to join these words to one another, then on the reverse he wrote the Latin formula: “_Ad lapidem currebat olim regina._” “Dog-Latin of the worst,” he murmured. “I fancy that if I had been in the place of those good monks, I should have found better Latin and got quite as good a result. Nevertheless we must take it as we find it. So the queen rode at a gallop towards the block.... The queen rode.... Look at your watch, Josephine.” He was no longer laughing. For a minute or two perhaps, not more, his face was set in an expression of gravity, and his eyes, seemingly fixed on the void, showed an immense effort of meditation. He perceived, however, that Josine was regarding him with a look of admiration and boundless confidence, and he smiled on her with an absent-minded air without breaking the thread of his ideas. Motionless in his bonds, his face haggard with anxiety, Beaumagnan listened. Was it really a fact that the tremendous secret was about to be divulged? Two or three more minutes passed in a dead silence. Then Josephine murmured: “What’s the matter with you, Ralph? You look quite wrought up.”