The Lighted Match | Page 5

lither. The second man stood calm, immobile, with his arms crossed on his breast, bending an impassive glance on the other from singularly steady eyes. His six feet of well-proportioned stature just missed an exaggeration of soldierly bearing.
The unwavering mouth-line; level, dark brows almost meeting over unflinching gray eyes; the uncurved nose and commanding forehead were in concert with the clean, almost lean sweep of the jaw, in spelling force for field or council.
"Am I a brigand, Von Ritz, to be harassed by police? Answer me--am I?" Pagratide spoke in a tempest of anger. He halted before the other man, his hands twitching in fury.
Von Ritz remained as motionless, apparently as mildly interested, as though he were listening to the screaming of a parrot.
"My orders were explicit." His words fell icily. "They were the orders of His Majesty's government. I shall obey them. I beg pardon, I shall attempt to obey them; and thus far my attempts to serve His Majesty have not encountered failure. I should prefer not having to call on the ambassador--or the American secret service."
"By God! If I had a sword--" breathed Pagratide. His fury had gone through heat to cold, and his attitude was that of a man denied the opportunity of resenting a mortal affront.
Von Ritz coolly inclined his head, indicating the heaped-up luggage on the table between them. Otherwise he did not move.
"The stick there, on the table, is a sword-cane," he commented.
Pagratide stood unmoving.
The other waited a moment, almost deferentially, then went on with calm deliberation.
"You left your regiment without leave, captain. One might almost call that--" Then Benton remembered an auxiliary door at the back of his apartment and made his escape unnoticed.
A half hour later, changed from boots and breeches into evening dress, Benton was opening a long package which bore the name of his florist in town. In another moment he had spread a profusion of roses on his table and stood bending over them with the critically selective gaze of a Paris.
When he had made the choice of one, he carefully pared every thorn from its long stem. Then he went out through the rear of the hall to a stairway at the back.
He knew of a window-seat above, where he could wait in concealment behind a screening mass of potted palms to rise out of his ambush and intercept Cara as she came into the hall. It pleased him to regard himself as a genie, materializing out of emptiness to present the rose which she had chosen to declare unobtainable.
In the shadowed recess he ensconced himself with his knees drawn up and the flower twirling idly between his fingers.
For a while he measured his vigil only by the ticking of a clock somewhere out of sight, then he heard a quiet footfall on the hardwood, and through the fronds of the plants he saw a man's figure pace slowly by. The broad shoulders and the lancelike carriage proclaimed Von Ritz even before the downcast face was raised. At Cara's door the European wheeled uncertainly and paused. Because something vague and subconscious in Benton's mind had catalogued this man as a harbinger of trouble and branded him with distrust, his own eyes contracted and the rose ceased twirling.
Just then the door of Cara's room opened and closed, and the slender figure of the girl stood out in the silhouette of her black evening gown against the white woodwork. Her eyes widened and she paled perceptibly. For an instant, she caught her lower lip between her teeth; but she did not, by start or other overt manifestation, give sign of surprise. She only inclined her head in greeting, and waited for Von Ritz to speak.
He bowed low, and his manner was ceremonious.
"You do not like me--" He smiled, pausing as though in doubt as to what form of address he should employ; then he asked: "What shall I call you?"
"Miss Carstow," she prompted, in a voice that seemed to raise a quarantine flag above him.
"Certainly, Miss Carstow," he continued gravely. "Time has elapsed since the days of your pinafores and braids, when I was honored with the sobriquet of 'Soldier-man' and you were the 'Little Empress.'"
His voice was one that would have lent itself to eloquence. Now its even modulation carried a sort of cold charm.
"You do not like me," he repeated.
"I don't know," she answered simply. "I hadn't thought about it. I was surprised."
"Naturally." He contemplated her with grave eyes that seemed to admit no play of expression. "I came only to ask an interview later. At any time that may be most agreeable--Pardon me," he interrupted himself with a certain cynical humor in his voice, "at any time, I should say, that may be least disagreeable to you."
"I will tell you later," she said. He bowed himself