Von Ritz coolly inclined his head, indicating the heaped-up luggage on
the table between them. Otherwise he did not move.

"The stick there, on the table, is a sword-cane," he commented.

Pagratide stood unmoving.

The other waited a moment, almost deferentially, then went on with calm
deliberation.

"You left your regiment without leave, captain. One might almost call
that--" Then 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.