“At ‘Idle Times,’ sir.  You loaned it to Mr. Bristow to fill up the garage.”

“I remember.  Now, listen!” And as Benton talked a slow grin of contentment spread across the visage of Mr. McGuire, hinting of some enterprise that appealed to his venturesome soul with a lure beyond the ordinary.

In the city, Benton was a busy man, though his visit to the costumer’s was brief.  Coming out of the place, he fancied he caught a glimpse of Von Ritz, but the view was fleeting and he decided that his eyes must have deceived him.  He had himself patronized a rather obscure shop, recommended by Mr. McGuire.  Von Ritz would presumably have selected some more fashionable purveyor of disguises even had his assertion that he would not masquerade been made only to deceive.  Perhaps, thought the American, Colonel Von Ritz was becoming an obsession with him, merely because he stood for Galavia and the threat of royalty’s mandate.  He was convinced of this later in the day, when he once more fancied that a disappearing pair of broad shoulders belonged to the European.  This time he laughed at the idea.  The surroundings made the supposition ludicrous.  It was among the tawdry shops of ship chandlers in the East Side, where he himself had gone in search of certain able seamen in the company of the sailing-master of the Isis.  Von Ritz would hardly be consorting with the fo’castle men who frequent the water front below Brooklyn Bridge.

The few days of the last week raced by, with all the charm of sky and field that the magic of Indian summer can lavish, and for Benton and Cara, they raced also with the sense of fast-slipping hope and relentlessly marching doom.  Outwardly Cara set a pace for vivacious and care-free enjoyment that left Mrs. Porter-Woodleigh, the “semi-professional light-hearted lady,” as O’Barreton named her, “to trail along in the ruck.”  Alone with Benton, there was always the furrow between the brows and the distressed gaze upon the mystery beyond the sky-line, but Pagratide and Von Ritz were vigilant, to the end that their tete-a-tetes were few.

Neither Benton nor Cara had alluded to the man’s overbold assertion that he would find a way.  It was a futile thing said in eagerness.  The day of the dance, the last day they could hope for together, came unprefaced by development.  To-morrow she must take up her journey and her duty:  her holiday would be at its end.  It was all the greater reason why this evening should be memorable.  He should think of her afterward as he saw her to-night, and it pleased her that in the irresponsibility of the maskers she should appear to him in the garb of vagabond liberty, since in fact freedom was impossible to her.

As the kaleidoscope of the first dance sifted and shifted its pattern of color, three men stood by the door, scanning the disguised figures with watchful eyes.

One of the three was fantastically arrayed as a cannibal chief, in brown fleshings, with cuffs upon his ankles, gaudy decorations about his neck, and huge rings in nose and ears.