Instinctively he put behind him his hands which held the paper.

Cecile's lips took on an added curl of scorn as she observed the act.
"You thief!" she said, very low, but very fiercely.

"That was the paper that you left behind you, was it ?" "The paper that I have is certainly the paper that I left behind," he answered serenely, for he had himself well in hand by now.

"And as for dubbing me a thief so readily"-- he paused, and shrugged his shoulders--"you are a woman," he concluded, with an air suggesting that that fact was a conclusion to all things.
"Fool!" she blazed.

"Do you think to overcome me by quibbles?
Do you think to dupe me with words and shrugs ?" "My dear Cecile" he begged half-whimsically, "may I implore you to use some restraint?
Inured as I am to the unbounded licence of your tongue and to the abandon that seems so inherent in you, let me assure you that--" "Ah! You can say Cecile now ?" she cried, leaving the remainder of his speech unheeded.