en 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.

Just then the door of Cara's room opened and closed, and the slender
figure of the girl stood out in the silhouette of her black evening gown
against the white woodwork. Her eyes widened and she paled perceptibly.
For an instant, she caught her lower lip between her teeth; but she did
not, by start or other overt manifestation, give sign of surprise. She
only inclined her head in greeting, and waited for Von Ritz to speak.

He bowed low, and his manner was ceremonious.

"You do not like me--" He smiled, pausing as though in doubt as to what
form of address he should employ; then he asked: "What shall I call
you?"

"Miss Carstow," she prompted, in a voice that seemed to raise a
quarantine flag above him.

"Certainly, Miss Carstow," he continued gravely. "Time has elapsed since
the days of your pinafores and braids, when I was honored with the
sobriquet of 'Soldier-man' a