d with incandescent fruit of brilliant
colors. Flags hung between the fronds of the palms and the plumes of the
acacias, and among the pleasure-seekers from East and West of Suez fell
pelting showers of confetti.

After dinner Cara and the ladies of her party had withdrawn to their
rooms to prepare for the gay warfare of the gardens. Benton, awaiting
them in the rotunda, lounged on one of the low divans which circle the
walls of the octagonal chamber, beneath carved lattices and Moorish
panels; a cigarette between his fingers and a small cup of black coffee
on the low tabouret at his elbow.

The place invited lazy ease, and Benton was as indolent among his
cushions as the spirit of brooding Egypt, but his eyes, watching the
stairs down which she would come, remained alert.

Hearing his name called in a voice which rang familiarly, he glanced up
to recognize the smiling face of young Harcourt, his chance acquaintance
of Capri. He set down the small Turkish cup and rose.

"Come back to the bar and fortify yourself against the thin red line of
British soldiery out there in the gardens. You can get a ripping
highball for eight _piastres_," laughed the newcomer. But Benton
declined.

"I am waiting for ladies," he explained. "I'll see you again."

"Sure you will." Harcourt paused. "I dash up the Nile in the morning,
going to do Karnak and Luxor--you know, the usual stunt. Been busy all
day buying scarabs and mummied cats, but I want to see you sometime
to-night. By the way, I've heard something--"

"All right. See you later." Benton spoke hurriedly, for he had caught
the flash of a slender figure in white on the stairs.

In the war of the confetti, man makes war on woman and woman on man,
while over the field reigns a universal and democratic acquaintanceship.

Cara was on vacation, and a child--bent on forgetting that to-morrow
must come. It was characteristic of her that she should enter into the
spirit of the occasion with all the abandon it suggested.

Benton stood by as she gradually gave ground before the attacks of a
stout, gray-templed Briton, a General of the Army of Occupation. She
fought gallantly, but he stood doggedly before her handfuls of confetti,
shaking the paper chips out of his eyes and mustache like some
invincible old St. Bernard, and her slender Mandarin-coated figure
retreated slowly before his red and medal-decked jacket.

"Watch out!" cried Benton, who followed her retreat, forbidden by t