He took her in his arms, and she offered no protest.

“To-morrow is to-morrow,” he said.  “To-day you are mine.  I love you.”

She took his head between her palms and drew his face down.  “I shall never do this with anyone else,” she said slowly, kissing his forehead.  “I love you.”

Slowly they turned together toward the house.

“I like your cavalryman, Pagratide,” he said thoughtfully.  His mind had suddenly recurred to the scene in the foreigner’s room, and he thought he began to understand.  “He is a man.  He dares to challenge royal wrath by venturing his love in the lists against his prince.”

“I wish he had not come,” she said slowly.

“But you don’t love him?” he demanded with sudden unreasoning jealousy.

“I love—­just, only, solely, you, Mr. Monopoly,” she replied.

At the door they paused.  There was complete silence save for a clock striking two and the distant crowing of a cock.  The pause belonged to them—­their moment of reprieve.

At last she said quietly:  “But you are stupid not to guess it.”

“Guess what?” he inquired.

“There is no Pagratide.  Pagratide’s real name is Karyl of Galavia.”

CHAPTER IV

THE DOCTRINE ACCORDING TO JONESY

If the living-room at “Idle Times” bore the impress of Van Bristow’s individuality and taste, his den was the tangible setting of his personality.

His marriage had, only eighteen months before, cut his life sharply with the boundary of an epoch.  The den bore something of the atmosphere of a museum dedicated to past eras.  It was crowded with useless junk that stood for divers memories and much wandering.  Many of the pictures that cumbered the walls were redolent of the atmosphere of overseas.

There were photographs wherein the master of “Idle Times” and Mr. George Benton appeared together, ranging from ancient football days to snapshots of a mountain-climbing expedition in the Andes, dated only two years back.

It was into this sanctum that Benton clanked, booted and spurred, early the following morning.

Ostensibly Van was looking over business letters, but there was a trace of wander-lust in the eyes that strayed off with dreamy truancy beyond the tree-tops.

Benton planted himself before his host with folded arms, and stood looking down almost accusingly into the face of his old friend.

“Whenever I have anything particularly unpleasant to do,” began the guest, “I do it quick.  That’s why I’m here now.”

Van Bristow looked up, mildly astonished.

During a decade of intimacy these two men had joyously, affectionately and consistently insulted each other on all possible occasions.  Now, however, there was a certain purposeful ring in Benton’s voice which told the other this was quite different from the time-honored affectation of slander.  Consequently his demand for further enlightenment came with terse directness.