this gentleman is here."

"Yes, Miss."

"Come!" said the girl to her guest. She led Clay to the massive
stairway, but stopped at the first tread to call back an order over her
shoulder. "Refer the officers to me if they insist on coming into the
house."

"I'll see to it, Miss."

Clay followed his hostess to the stairs and went up them with her, but
he went protesting, though with a chuckle of mirth. "He sure ruined my
clothes a heap. I ain't fit to be seen."

The suit he had been so proud of was shrinking so that his arms and
legs stuck out like signposts. The color had run and left the goods a
peculiar bilious-looking overall blue.

She lit a gas-log in a small library den.

"Just a minute, please."

She stepped briskly from the room. In her manner was a crisp decision,
in her poise a trim gallantry that won him instantly.

"I'll bet she'd do to ride with," he told himself in a current Western
idiom.

When she came back it was to take him to a dressing-room. A complete
change of clothing was laid out for him on a couch. A man whom Clay
recognized as a valet--he had seen his duplicate in the moving-picture
theaters at Tucson--was there to supply his needs and attend to the
temperature of his bath.

"Stevens will look after you," she said; "when you are ready come back
to Dad's den."

His eyes followed to the door her resilient step. Once, when he was a
boy, he had seen Ada Rehan play in "As You Like It." Her acting had
entranced him. This girl carried him back to that hour. She was
boyish as Rosalind, woman in every motion of her slim and lissom body.

At the head of the stairway she paused. Jenkins was moving hurriedly
up to meet her.

"It's a policeman, Miss. 'E's come about the--the person that came in,
and 'e's talkin' to Nora on the steps. She's a-jollyin' 'im, as you
might say, Miss."

His young mistress nodded. She swept the hall with the eye of a
general. Swiftly she changed the position of a Turkish rug so as to
hide a spot on the polished floor that had been recently scrubbed and
was still moist. It seemed best to discover Nora's plan of campaign
before taking over the charge of affairs.

"Many's the time I've met yuh goin' down the Avenoo with your heels
clickin' an' your head high," came the rich brogue of Nora O'Flannigan.
"An' I've said to myself, sez I, who's the handsome officer that sets
off his uniform so gr-rand?"

The girl leaned on her mop and gave the polic