"Am I a brigand, Von Ritz, to be harassed by police? Answer me--am I?"

Pagratide spoke in a tempest of anger. He halted before the other man,

his hands twitching in fury.

Von Ritz remained as motionless, apparently as mildly interested, as

though he were listening to the screaming of a parrot.

"My orders were explicit." His words fell icily. "They were the orders

of His Majesty's government. I shall obey them. I beg pardon, I shall

attempt to obey them; and thus far my attempts to serve His Majesty have

not encountered failure. I should prefer not having to call on the

ambassador--or the American secret service."

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"By God! If I had a sword--" breathed Pagratide. His fury had gone

through heat to cold, and his attitude was that of a man denied the

opportunity of resenting a mortal affront.

Von Ritz coolly inclined his head, indicating the heaped-up luggage on

the table between them. Otherwise he did not move.

"The stick there, on the table, is a sword-cane," he commented.

Pagratide stood unmoving.

The other waited a moment, almost deferentially, then went on with calm

deliberation.

"You left your regiment without leave, captain. One might almost call

that--" Then Benton remembered an auxiliary door at the back of his

apartment and made his escape unnoticed.

A half hour later, changed from boots and breeches into evening dress,

Benton was opening a long package which bore the name of his florist in

town. In another moment he had spread a profusion of roses on his table

and stood bending over them with the critically selective gaze of a

Paris.

When he had made the choice of one, he carefully pared every thorn from

its long stem. Then he went out through the rear of the hall to a

stairway at the back.

He knew of a window-seat above, where he could wait in concealment

behind a screening mass of potted palms to rise out of his ambush and

intercept Cara as she came into the hall. It pleased him to regard

himself as a genie, materializing out of emptiness to present the rose

which she had chosen to declare unobtainable.

In the shadowed recess he ensconced himself with his knees drawn up and

the flower twirling idly between his fingers.

For a while he measured his vigil only by the ticking of a clock

somewhere out of sight, then he heard a quiet footfall on the hardwood,

and through the fronds of the plants he saw a man's figure pace slowly

by. The broad shoulders and the lancelike carriage proclaimed Von Ritz

even before the downcast face was raised. At Cara's door the European

wheeled uncertainly and paused. Because something vague and subconscious

in Benton's mind had catalogued this man as a harbinger of trouble and

branded him with distrust, his own eyes contracted and the rose ceased

twirling.




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