“Could you come to-morrow to tea?”

“At the Plaza?”

“At the Plaza!” she affirmed with a bright nod.

“Thank you.”

Above the hum of chattering voices rose the bellow of the carriage porter: 

“Two hundred and thirty! Two hundred and thirty!”

“My car!” said the girl with a start.

P. Sybarite moved in front of her, signalling with a lifted hand.

“Two hundred and thirty,” he repeated.

A handsome town-car stood at the curb beneath the permanent awning of iron and glass.  Behind it a long rank waited with impatient, stuttering motors and dull-burning lamps that somehow forced home drowsy thoughts of bed.

Hurrying across the sidewalk, Marian permitted P. Sybarite to help her into the vehicle.

Transported by this proof of her graciousness, he gave the chauffeur the address: 

“Hotel Plaza.”

With the impudent imperturbability of his breed, the man nodded and grunted without looking round.

From the body of the vehicle Marian extended a white-gloved hand.

“Good-night, Mr. Sybarite.  To-morrow—­at five.”

Touching her fingers, P. Sybarite raised his hat; but before he could utter the response ready upon his tongue, he was seized by the arm and swung rudely away from the door.  At the same time a voice (the property of the owner of that unceremonious hand) addressed the porter roughly: 

“Shut that door and send the car along!  I’ll take charge of this gentleman!”

In this speech an accent of irony inhered to exasperate P. Sybarite.  Half a hundred people were looking on—­listening!  Angrily he wrenched his arm free.

“What the devil—!” he cried into the face of the aggressor; and in the act of speaking, recognised the man as him with whom Bayard Shaynon had been conversing in the lobby:  that putative parvenu—­hard-faced, cold-eyed, middle-aged, fine-trained, awkward in evening dress....

The hand whose grasp he had broken shifted to his shoulder, closing fingers like steel hooks upon it.

“If you need a row,” the man advised him quietly, “try that again.  If you’ve got good sense—­come along quiet’.”

“Where?  What for?  What right have you—?” P. Sybarite demanded in one raging breath.

“I’m the house detective here,” the other answered, holding his eyes with an inexorable glare.  And the muscles of his heavy jaw tightened even as he tightened his grasp upon the little man’s shoulder.  “And if it’s all the same to you, we’re going to have a quiet little talk in the office,” he added with a jerk of his head.

A sidelong glance discovered the fact that Marian’s car had disappeared.  Doubtless she had gone in ignorance of this outrage, perhaps thinking him accosted by a chance acquaintance.  At all events, she was gone, and there was now nothing to be gained from an attempt to bluster the detective down, but deeper shame and the scorn of all beholders.