The big inspector was pacing back and forth when Philip came in.

“Sit down, Steele, sit down,” he said.  “Take it easy, man—­and have a cigar.”

If MacGregor had suddenly gone into a fit Philip could not have been more surprised than at these words, as he stood with his cap in his hand before the desk of the fiery-mustached inspector, who was passing his box of choice Havanas.  There are tightly drawn lines of distinction in the Royal Mounted.  As Philip had once heard the commissioner say, “Every man in the service is a king—­but there are different degrees of kings,” and for a barracks man to be asked to sit in the inspector’s office and smoke was a sensational breach of the usual code.  But as he had distinctly heard the invitation to sit, and to smoke, Philip proceeded to do both, and waited in silence for the next mine to explode under his feet.  And there was a certain ease in his manner of doing these things which would have assured most men that he was not unaccustomed to sitting in the presence of greatness.

The inspector seemed to notice this.  For a moment he stood squarely in front of Steele, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, a twinkle in the cold, almost colorless eyechuckling, companionable laugh, such as finds its vent in the fellowship of equals, but which is seldom indulged in by a superior before an inferior in the R.N.W.M.  Police.

“Mighty good cigars, eh, Steele?” he asked, turning slowly toward the window.  “The commissioner sent ’em up to me from Regina.  Nothing like a good cigar on a dreary day like this.  Whew, listen to the wind—­straight from Medicine Hat!”

For a few moments he looked out upon the cheerless drab roofs of the barracks, with their wisps of pale smoke swirling upward into the leaden sky; counted the dozen gnarled and scrubby trees, as had become a habit with him; rested his eyes upon the black and shriveled remnants of summer flower-beds thrusting their frost-shrunken stalks through the snow, and then, almost as if he were speaking to himself, he said, “Steele, are you beautyproof?”

There was no banter in his voice.  It was low, so low that it had in it the ring of something more than mere desire for answer, and when the inspector turned, Philip observed a thing that he had never seen before—­a flush in MacGregor’s face.  His pale eyes gleamed.  His voice was filled with an intense earnestness as he repeated the question.  “I want to know, Steele.  Are you beauty-proof?”

In spite of himself Philip felt the fire rising in his own face.  In that moment the inspector could have hit on no words that would have thrilled him more deeply than those which he had spoken.  Beauty-proof!  Did MacGregor know?  Was it possible—­ He took a step forward, words came to his lips, but he caught himself before he had given voice to them.

Beauty-proof!

He laughed, softly, as the inspector had laughed a few moments before.  But there was a strange tenseness in his face—­something which MacGregor saw, but could not understand.