Edmonds nodded, and escorted her downstairs.  Nicely judging the time when Banneker would have finished, he was back in quarter of an hour.  The stenographer had just left.

“What a superb woman, Ban!” he said.  “It’s small wonder that Enderby lost himself.”

Banneker nodded.  “What would she have said if she could know that you, an absolute stranger, had been the means of saving her from a terrific scandal?  Gives one a rather shivery feeling about the power and responsibility of the press, doesn’t it?”

“It would have been worse than murder,” declared the veteran, with so much feeling that his friend gave him a grateful look.  “What’s she doing in New York?  Is it safe?”

“Came on to see a specialist.  Yes; it’s all right.  The Enderbys are abroad.”

“I see.  How long since you’d seen her?”

“Before this trip?  Last spring, when I took a fortnight off.”

“You went clear West, just to see her?”

“Mainly.  Partly, too, to get back to the restfulness of the place where I never had any troubles.  I’ve kept the little shack I used to own; pay a local chap named Mindle to keep it in shape.  So I just put in a week of quiet there.”

“You’re a queer chap, Ban.  And a loyal one.”

“If I weren’t loyal to Camilla Van Arsdale—­” said Banneker, and left the implication unconcluded.

“Another friend from your picturesque past is down below,” said Edmonds, and named Gardner.

“Lord!  That fellow nearly cost me my life, last time we met,” laughed Banneker.  Then his face altered.  Pain drew its sharp lines there, pain and the longing of old memories still unassuaged.  “Just the same, I’ll be glad to see him.”

He sought out the Californian, found him deep in talk with Guy Mallory of The Ledger, who had come in late, gave him hearty greeting, and looked about for Camilla Van Arsdale.  She was supping in the center of a curiously assorted group, part of whom remembered the old romance of her life, and part of whom had identified her, by some chance, as Royce Melvin, the composer.  All of them were paying court to her charm and intelligence.  She made a place beside herself for Banneker.

“We’ve been discussing The Patriot, Ban,” she said, “and Mr. Gaines has embalmed you, as an editorial writer, in the amber of one of his best epigrams.”

The Great Gaines made a deprecating gesture.  “My little efforts always sound better when I’m not present,” he protested.

“To be the subject of any Gaines epigram, however stinging, is fame in itself,” said Banneker.

“And no sting in this one.  ‘Attic salt and American pep,’” she quoted.  “Isn’t it truly spicy?”

Banneker bowed with half-mocking appreciation.  “I fancy, though, that Mr. Gaines prefers his journalistic egg more au naturel.”

“Sometimes,” admitted the most famous of magazine editors, “I could dispense with some of the pep.”