, thrown up into air and sunlight by a submarine volcano,
slashing and bellowing. But we can't have them here any longer. Keep
those revolvers under your pillow. All you have to do is to point.
Nobody will know that you can't shoot. And always remember, we're
watching over you. Good-night."

"Mouquin's for lunch?"

"Well, I'll be hanged! But it can't be, Kitty. You and I must not be
seen in public. If that was Karlov you will be marked, and so will any
one who travels with you."

"Good gracious!"

"Fact. But come up to the roost--changing taxis--to-morrow at five and
have tea."

Down in the street Cutty bore into the slanting rain, no longer a
drizzle. With his hands jammed in his side pockets and his gaze on the
sparkling pavement he continued downtown, in a dangerously ruminative
frame of mind, dangerous because had he been followed he would not have
known it.

Molly Conover's girl! That afternoon it had been Tommy Conover's girl;
now she was Molly's. It occurred to him for the first time that he was
one of those unfortunate individuals who are always able to open the
door to Paradise for others and are themselves forced to remain outside.
Hadn't he introduced Conover to Molly, and hadn't they fallen in love
on the spot? Too old to be a hero and not old enough to die. He grinned.
Some day he would use that line.

Of course it wasn't Kitty who set this peculiar cogitation in motion. It
wasn't her arms and the perfume of her hair. The actual thrill had come
from a recrudescence of a vanished passion; anyhow, a passion that had
been held suspended all these years. Still, it offered a disquieting
prospect. He was sensible enough to realize that he would be in for some
confusion in trying to disassociate the phantom from the quick.

Most pretty young women were flitter-flutters, unstable, shallow,
immature. But this little lady had depth, the sense of the living drama;
and, Lord, she was such a beauty! Wanted a man who would laugh when he
was happy and when he was hurt. A bull's-eye--bang, like that! For the
only breed worth its salt was the kind that laughed when happy and when
hurt.

The average young woman, rushing into his arms the way she had, would
not have stirred him in the least. And immediately upon the heels of
this thought came a taste of the confusion he saw in store for himself.
Was it the phantom or Kitty? He jumped to another angle to escape the
impasse. Kitty's coming to him in that fashion rai