little stateroom, closed the door, folded his arms and confronted her
with a grim face.

"Before leaving you, madam," said he, "I wish to repeat that only
your sex has saved you from summary execution. You are guilty of high
crimes and misdemeanors, in the code of this expedition--guilty of
falsehood and deception that might have introduced fatal complications
into my most carefully evolved plan.

"Nevertheless, my code as an officer prohibits any punishment
other than this merely nominal arrest. I must offer you temporary
hospitality. Moreover, if you need any assistance in dressing your
wound, I will give it. Common humanity demands that."

"I don't need anything, thank you," she answered. "I don't ask for
anything, but to stay with the Legion."

"That's a point I must positively decline to argue, madam," he
informed her, shaking his head. "And, since there is nothing more to
say, I wish you a very good night!"

Bowing, he left the stateroom. He heard the door-catch snap. Somehow,
in some way as yet inexplicable to him, that sound caused him another
discomfort. For the first time in his life he had been having private
conversation with a woman--conversation that might almost have been
construed as intimate, since it had held secrets. For the first time
he had felt himself outwitted by a woman, beaten, made mock of. Now he
was being shut away from her.

Inwardly raging as he was, hot, confused, unhorsed, still a strange,