“Bah!  They won’t give it,” he said, harshly.

“And why not?  I think it is rather nice of those chaps.  Of course, Runnels would like to ingratiate himself with you—­”

“Funny spectacle, eh?  Me the guest of—­Anthony!”

There was a trace of anxiety in her voice as she answered, and, though she spoke carelessly, she did not meet his eyes.

“I—­I’d rather you’d make an excuse.  I’ll have to go home alone, you know.”

He raised his brows mockingly.  “My dear!  I’m to be the honored guest.”

“Suit yourself, of course.”

A marine officer approached, mopping his face, and engaged her in conversation, whereupon Cortlandt rose languidly and strolled away through the crowd that came eddying forth from the ballroom.

Meanwhile, Kirk had found Runnels, who was looking for him, eager to express his congratulations and to discuss their exploit in detail.

“I’ve just taken the wife home,” he explained.  “I never saw anybody so excited.  If she’d stayed here she’d have given the whole thing away, sure.  Why, she wasn’t half so much affected by her own marriage.”

“I—­I haven’t pulled myself together yet.  Funny thing—­I’ve just been watching my wife dancing with the man she is engaged to.  Gee!  It’s great to be married.”

“She’s the dearest thing I ever saw; and wasn’t she game?  Alice will cry for weeks over this.  Why, it’s the sob-fest of her lifetime.  She’s bursting with grief and rapture.  I hope your wife can keep a secret better than mine, otherwise there will be a tremendous commotion before to-morrow’s sun sets.  I suppose now I’ll have to hang around home with my finger on my lip, saying ‘Hist!’ until the news comes out.  Whew!  I am thirsty.”

Anthony did not tell his friend about the detective in Colon and his mysterious warning, partly because he was not greatly disturbed by it and trusted to meeting the difficulty in proper time, and partly because his mind was once more too full of his great good-fortune to permit of any other interest.  Now that he had some one to whom he could talk freely, he let himself go, and he was deep in conversation when Stephen Cortlandt strolled up and stopped for an instant to say: 

“Quite a lively party, isn’t it?”

Kirk noticed how sallow he had grown in the past few months, and how he had fallen off in weight.  He looked older, too; his cheeks had sunken in until they outlined his jaws sharply.  He seemed far from well; a nervous twitching of his fingers betokened the strain he had been under.  He was quite as immaculate as usual, however, quite as polished and collected.

“How is our little ‘stag’ coming on?” he asked.

“Fine!  Everything is ready,” said Runnels.  “You won’t expect an elaborate layout; it’s mostly cold storage, you know, but we’ll at least be able to quench our thirst at the Central.”

“Then it’s really coming off?  I was—­afraid you’d forgotten it.”  Cortlandt cast a curious glance at Kirk, who exclaimed, heartily: