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 backward, then turning on his heel went silently down the stairs.

She stood hesitant for a moment, with both hands pressed against the door at her back, and her brow drawn in a deep furrow, then she threw her chin upward and shook her head with that resolute gesture which meant, with her, shaking off at least the outward seeming of annoyance.

Benton came out from his hiding-place behind the palms, and she looked up at him with a momentary clearing of her brow.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“I unintentionally played eavesdropper,” he said humbly, handing her the rose.  “I was lying in wait to decorate you.”

“It is wonderful,” she exclaimed.  “I think it is the wonderfulest rose that any little girl ever had for a magic gift.”  She held it for a moment, softly against her cheek.

He bent forward.  “Cara!” he whispered.  No answer.  “Cara!” he repeated.

“Yeth, thir,” she lisped in a whimsical little-girl voice, looking up with a smile stolen from a fairy-tale.

“I am just lending you that rose.  I had meant to give it to you, but now I want it back—­when you are through with it.  May I have it?”

She held it out teasingly.  “Do you want it now—­Indian-giver?” she demanded.

“You know I don’t,” in an injured tone.

“I’m glad, because you couldn’t have it—­yet.”  And she was gone, leaving him to make his appearance from the direction of his own apartments.

CHAPTER III

THE MOON OVERHEARS

At dinner the talk ran for a course or two with the hounds, then strayed aimlessly into a dozen discursive channels.

“My boy,” whispered Mrs. Van from her end of the table, to Pagratide on her right, “I relinquish you to the girl on your other side.  You have made a very brave effort to talk to me.  Ah, I know—­” raising a slender hand to still his polite remonstrance—­“there is no Cara but Cara, and Pagratide is—­” She let her mischief-laden smile finish the comment.