a
report of myself that I can afford to. I'll go down now and wait for
you."

"No; don't. Sit up here with me till I finish. I don't want to lose any
of you," said he affectionately.

But she laughingly refused, declaring that he would be through all the
sooner for his other guests, if she left him.

"See that she meets some people, Bop," Banneker directed. "Gaines of The
New Era, if he's here, and Betty Raleigh, and that new composer, and the
Junior Masters."

Edmonds nodded, and escorted her downstairs. Nicely judging the time
when Banneker would have finished, he was back in quarter of an hour.
The stenographer had just left.

"What a superb woman, Ban!" he said. "It's small wonder that Enderby
lost himself."

Banneker nodded. "What would she have said if she could know that you,
an absolute stranger, had been the means of saving her from a terrific
scandal? Gives one a rather shivery feeling about the power and
responsibility of the press, doesn't it?"

"It would have been worse than murder," declared the veteran, with so
much feeling that his friend gave him a grateful look. "What's she doing
in New York? Is it safe?"

"Came on to see a specialist. Yes; it's all right. The Enderbys are
abroad."

"I see. How long since you'd seen her?"

"Before this trip? Last spring, when I took a fortnight off."

"You went clear West, just to see her?"

"Mainly. Partly, too, to get back to the restfulness of the place where
I never had any troubles. I've kept the little shack I used to own; pay
a local chap named Mindle to keep it in shape. So I just put in a week
of quiet there."

"You're a queer chap, Ban. And a loyal one."

"If I weren't loyal to Camilla Van Arsdale--" said Banneker, and left
the implication unconcluded.

"Another friend from your picturesque past is down below," said Edmonds,
and named Gardner.

"Lord! That fellow nearly cost me my life, last time we met," laughed
Banneker. Then his face altered. Pain drew its sharp lines there, pain
and the longing of old memories still unassuaged. "Just the same, I'll
be glad to see him."

He sought out the Californian, found him deep in talk with Guy Mallory
of The Ledger, who had come in late, gave him hearty greeting, and
looked about for Camilla Van Arsdale. She was supping in the center of a
curiously assorted group, part of whom remembered the old romance of her
life, and part of whom had identified her, by some chance, as Royce
Melvin, the com