"Then if you are not hired you are your own master, and you serve
yourself ill when you take the trouble to follow me. Now I'm going to
finish my walk, and I beg you to keep out of my way. This is not a place
where liberties may be infringed with impunity. Good evening, sir."

Armitage wheeled about sharply, and as his face came into the full light
of the street lamps the stranger stared at him intently.

Armitage was fumbling in his pocket for a coin, but this impertinence
caused him to change his mind. Two policemen were walking slowly toward
them, and Armitage, annoyed by the whole incident, walked quickly away.

He was not wholly at ease over the meeting. The fact that Chauvenet had
so promptly put a spy as well as the Servian assassin on his trail
quickened his pulse with anger for an instant and then sobered him.

He continued his walk, and paused presently before an array of books
in a shop window. Then some one stopped at his side and he looked up to
find the same man he had accosted at the Treasury Building lifting his
hat,--an American soldier's campaign hat. The fellow was an extreme
blond, with a smooth-shaven, weather-beaten face, blue eyes and light
hair.

"Pardon me! You are mistaken; I am not a spy. But it is wonderful; it is
quite wonderful--"

The man's face was alight with discovery, with an alert pleasure that
awaited recognition.