“I’m glad—­you like me,” she said, and she pushed back in her chair and looked down and away from him and felt that her face was burning with blushes.

“When you have found out all about me, I hope you’ll keep on speaking to me just the same,” he continued.  “I warn you that, from now on, I am going to pester you a lot.  You’ll find me sitting on your front door-step every morning, ready to take orders.  To-morrow I must hie me to New York, to explain to some venerable directors why the net earnings have fallen below forty per cent.  But when I return, O fair maiden, look out for me.”

He would be back in Washington within three days.  He would come to her hotel.  They were to ride in the motor-car and they were to go to the theaters.  She must meet his mother.  His mother would take her to New York, and there would be the opera, and this, and that, and so on, for he was going to show her all the attractions of the Western Hemisphere.

The night was thinning into the grayness of dawn when he took her to the waiting carriage.  She put her hand through the window and he held it for a long time, while they once more went over their delicious plans.

After the carriage had started, Popova spoke up from his dark corner.

“I am beginning to understand why you wished to come to America.  Also I have made a discovery.  It was Mr. Pike who overcame the guards and jumped over the wall.”

“I shall ask the Governor-General to give you Koldo’s position.”

An enormous surprise was waiting for them at the hotel.  It was a cable from Morovenia—­long, decisive, definite, composed with an utter disregard for heavy tolls.  It directed Popova to bring the shameless daughter back to Morovenia immediately—­not a moment’s delay under pain of the most horrible penalties that could be imagined.  They were to take the first steamer.  They were to come home with all speed.  Surely there was no mistaking the fierce intent of the message.

Popova suffered a moral collapse and Kalora went into a fit of weeping.  Both of them feared to return and yet, at such a crisis, they knew that they dared not disobey.

The whole morning was given over to hurried packing-up.  An afternoon train carried them to New York.  A steamer was to sail early next day, and they went aboard that very night.

[Illustration:  They were to come home with all speed.]

Kalora had left a brief message at her hotel in Washington.  It was addressed to Mr. Alexander H. Pike, and simply said that something dreadful had happened, that she had been called home, that she was going back to a prison the doors of which would never swing open for her, and she must say good-by to him for ever.

She tried to communicate with him before sailing away from New York.  Messenger boys, bribed with generous cab-fares, were sent to all the large hotels, but they could not find the right Mr. Pike.  The real Mr. Pike was living at a club.