The prime number with which Mallarme was working, he believes, is seven, and the unique number 707--a hypothesis corroborated by several pieces of ingenious
cryptogrammic reasoning, including the homonymic identity of the key word "si" (in the repeated phrase "com me si") with the seventh note in the sol-fa scale, and the discovery that two thematically related sonnets from the oeuvre contain, respectively, 70 and 77 words, while a third ("Sonneten - X") points, like the end of Coup de des, to the Septentrion constellation, named for its seven stars.
"A tease" who lures Humbert on a "
cryptogrammic paper chase" (250), Quilty challenges Humbert's self-professed ability to see through "all ooze and squid-cloud" to the "shells and strategems" beneath: he makes a game of Humbert's "weakness," and in doing so, forces Humbert to realize the extent and significance of that "weakness." His is also a seduction-by-simulacra.