the man.

"Just take in my card," said T. X. "I think he may care to see me."

The man bowed, produced from some mysterious corner a silver salver
and glided upstairs in that manner which well-trained servants have,
a manner which seems to call for no bodily effort. In a minute he
returned.

"Will you come this way, sir," he said, and led the way up a broad
flight of stairs.

At the head of the stairs was a corridor which ran to the left and to
the right. From this there gave four rooms. One at the extreme end of
the passage on the right, one on the left, and two at fairly regular
intervals in the centre.

When the man's hand was on one of the doors, T. X. asked quietly, "I
think I have seen you before somewhere, my friend."

The man smiled.

"It is very possible, sir. I was a waiter at the Constitutional for some
time."

T. X. nodded.

"That is where it must have been," he said.

The man opened the door and announced the visitor.

T. X. found himself in a large room, very handsomely furnished, but just
lacking that sense of cosiness and comfort which is the feature of the
Englishman's home.

Kara rose from behind a big writing table, and came with a smile and a
quick step to greet the visitor.

"This is a most unexpected pleasure," he said, and shook hands warmly.

T. X. had not seen him for a year and found very little change in this
strange young man. He could not be more confident than he had been, nor
bear himself with a more graceful carriage. Whatever social success he
had achieved, it had not spoiled him, for his manner was as genial and
easy as ever.

"I think that will do, Miss Holland," he said, turning to the girl who,
with notebook in hand, stood by the desk.

"Evidently," thought T. X., "our Hellenic friend has a pretty taste in
secretaries."

In that one glance he took her all in--from the bronze-brown of her hair
to her neat foot.

T. X. was not readily attracted by members of the opposite sex. He was
self-confessed a predestined bachelor, finding life and its incidence
too absorbing to give his whole mind to the serious problem of marriage,
or to contract responsibilities and interests which might divert his
attention from what he believed was the greater game. Yet he must be a
man of stone to resist the freshness, the beauty and the youth of this
straight, slender girl; the pink-and-whiteness of her, the aliveness
and buoyancy and the thrilling sense of vitality she carried in