“You see, Miss Polly,” he said, “no lady should go about unprotected down here.”

“Ordinarily it’s as safe as any city,” said Sherwen.  “Just now I can’t be so certain.”

“I hate being watched over like a child!” pouted Miss Brewster.  “And I love sight-seeing alone.  The flowers along the Calvario Road were so lovely.”

“That’s the road to the palace,” remarked Carroll, looking at her closely.

“And the butterflies are so marvelous,” she continued cheerfully.  “Who lives in that salmon-pink pagoda just this side of the curve?”

Trouble sat dark and heavy upon the handsome features of Mr. Preston Fairfax Fitzhugh Carroll, but he was too experienced to put a direct query to his inamorata.  What suspicion he had, he cherished until after dinner, when he took it to the club and made it the foundation of certain inquiries.

Thus it happened that at eleven o’clock that evening, he paused before a bench in the plaza, bowered in the bloom of creepers which flowed down from a balcony of the Kast, and occupied by the comfortably sprawled-out form of Mr. Thomas Cluff, who was making a burnt offering to Morpheus.

“Good-evening!” said Mr. Carroll pleasantly.

“Evenin’!  How’s things?” returned the other.

“Right as can be, thanks to you.  On behalf of the Brewster family, I want to express our appreciation of your assistance to Miss Brewster this morning.”

“Oh, that was nothing,” returned the other.

“But it might have been a great deal.  Mr. Brewster will wish to thank you in person—­”

“Aw, forget it!” besought Mr. Thomas Cluff.  “That little lady is all right.  I’d just as soon eat an ambassador, let alone a gilt-framed secretary, to help her out.”

“Miss Brewster,” said the other, somewhat more stiffly, “is a wholly admirable young lady, but she is not always well advised in going out unescorted.  By the way, you can doubtless confirm the rumor as to the identity of her insulter.”

“His name is Von Plaanden.  But I don’t think he meant to insult any one.”

“You will permit me to be the best judge of that.”

“Go as far as you like,” asserted the big fellow cheerfully.  “That fellow Perkins can tell you more about the start of the thing than I can.”

“From what I hear, he has no cause to be proud of his part in the matter,” said the Southerner, frowning.

“He’s sure a prompt little runner,” asserted Cluff.  “But I’ve run away in my time, and glad of the chance.”

“You will excuse me from sympathizing with your standards.”

“Sure, you’re excused,” returned the athlete, so placidly that Carroll, somewhat at a loss, altered his speech to a more gracious tone.

“At any rate, you stood your ground when you were needed, which is more than Mr. Perkins did.  I should like to have a talk with him.”

“That’s easy.  He was rambling around here not a quarter of an hour ago with young Raimonda.  That’s them sitting on the bench over by the fountain.”