“Colonel Von Ritz,” she commanded, “you will take me back at once!” She drew herself as far away from him as the space on the seat permitted.

“Your Highness’s commands are supreme.”  The man spoke in the same even voice.  “I intend taking Your Highness back—­when it is safer for Your Highness to go back.”

He turned the car suddenly to the right and sped along the narrower road that led away from the main thoroughfare.

“You will take me back, now.  I had not supposed that to a gentleman—­” Her voice choked into silence and her eyes filled with angry tears.

“Your Highness misunderstands,” he said coldly.  “I obey the throne.  If I live long enough to serve it in another reign, Your Highness will be Your Majesty.  Yet even then will your commands be no more supreme to me—­no more sacred—­than now.  But even then, Your Highness—­”

“Call me Miss Carstow,” she interrupted in impassioned anger.  “I will have my freedom for to-night at least.”

“Yet even then, Miss Carstow,” he calmly resumed, “when danger threatens you or your throne, I shall take such means as I can to avert that danger, as I am doing now.  Even though”—­for a moment the cold, metallic evenness left his voice and a human note stole into his words—­“even though the reward be contempt.”

She did not answer.

“Your High—­Miss Carstow,”—­Von Ritz spoke with a deferential finality—­“believe me, some things are inevitable.”

Suddenly the car stopped.

The girl made a movement as though she would rise, but the man’s arm quietly stretched itself across before her, not touching her, but forming an effective barrier.

She did not speak, but her eyes blazed indignantly.  For the first time he was able to return her gaze directly, and as she looked into the unflinching gray pupils, under the level brows, there was a momentary combat, then her own dropped.  He sat for a space with his arm outstretched, holding her prisoner in the seat.

“Your Highness”—­he spoke as impersonally as a judge ruling from the bench—­“I must remind you again that I am your escort to-night only in order that someone else may not be.  What his plans were, I need not now say, but I know, and it became my duty to thwart him.  It is hardly necessary to explain how I discovered Mr. Benton’s purpose.  It was not easy, but it has been accomplished.  I have acquainted myself with his movements, his intention, and his preparations; I have even counterfeited his masquerade and stolen his car.  There are bigger things at stake than individual wishes.  I stand for the throne.  Mr. Benton has played a daring game—­and lost.”

He paused, and she found herself watching with a strange fascination the face almost marble-like in its steadiness.

“Some day—­perhaps soon,” he went on, the arm unmoved, “you will be Queen of Galavia.”  She shuddered.  “You can then strip away my epaulets if you choose.  For the moment, however, I must regard you as a prisoner of war and ask your parole, as a gentleman and an officer, not to leave the car while I investigate the trouble with the motor.  Otherwise—­” he added composedly, “we shall have to remain as we are.”