Clay, watching her as she moved, thought of a paragraph from Mark Twain’s “Eve’s Diary”: 

She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can’t speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it.  And she is color mad:  brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadow on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the waste of space. . . .

But the thing that tantalized him about her and filled him with despair was that, though one moment she might be the first woman in the birthday of the world filled with the primitive emotions of the explorer, the next she was a cool, Paris-gowned-and-shod young modern, about as competent to meet emergencies as anything yet devised by heaven and a battling race.

They crossed to Morningside Park and moved through it to the northern end where the remains of Fort Laight, built to protect the approach to the city during the War of 1812, can still be seen and traced.

Beatrice had read the story of the earthworks.  In the midst of the telling of it she stopped to turn upon him with swift accusation, “You’re not listening.”

“That’s right, I wasn’t,” he admitted.

“Have you heard something about your cigarette girl?”

Clay was amazed at the accuracy of her center shot.

“Yes.”  He showed her the newspaper.

She read.  The golden head nodded triumphantly.  “I told you she could look out for herself.  You see when she had lost you she knew enough to advertise.”

Was there or was there not a faint note of malice in the girl’s voice?  Clay did not know.  But it would have neither surprised nor displeased him.  He had long since discovered that his imperious little friend was far from an angel.

At his rooms he found a note awaiting him.

Come to-night after eleven.  I am locked in the west rear room of the second story.  Climb up over the back porch.  Don’t make any noise.  The window will be unbolted.  A friend is mailing this.  For God’s sake, don’t fail me.

The note was signed “Kitty.”  Below were given the house and street number.  Clay studied the letter a long time—­the wording of it, the formation of the letters, the spirit that had actuated the writer.  It was written upon a sheet of cheap lined paper torn from a pad.  The envelope was one of those sold at the post-office already stamped.

Was the note genuine?  Or did it lead to a trap?  He could not tell.  It might be a plant or it might be a wail of real distress.  There was only one way to find out unless he went to the police.  That way was to go through with the adventure.  The police!  Clay went back to the thought of them several times.  The truth was that he had put himself out of court there.  He was in bad with the bluecoats and would probably be arrested if he showed up at headquarters.