e until this intruder was on his way
elsewhere.

He could do it; and he based his assurance upon his experiences and
observations. Never a squire of dames, he knew the part. He had played
the game occasionally in the capitals of Europe when there had been some
information he had particularly desired. Clever, scheming women, too. A
clever, passably good-looking elderly man could make himself peculiarly
attractive to young women and women in the thirties. Dazzlement for the
young; the man who knew all about life, the trivial little courtesies
a younger man generally forgot; the moving of chairs, the holding of
wraps; the gray hairs which served to invite trust and confidence, which
lulled the eternal feminine fear of the male. To the older women, no
callow youth but a man of discernment, discretion, wit and fancy and
daring, who remembered birthdays husbands forgot, who was always round
when wanted.

There was no vanity back of these premises. Cutty was merely reaching
about for an expedient to thwart what to his anticipatory mind promised
to be an inevitability. Of course the glamour would not last; it never
did, but he felt he could sustain it until yonder chap was off and away.

That evening at five-thirty Kitty received a box of beautiful roses,
with Cutty's card.

"Oh, the lovely things!" she cried.

She kissed them and set them in a big copper jug, arranged and
rearranged them for the simple pleasure it afforded her. What a dear
man this Cutty was, to have thought of her in this fashion! Her father's
friend, her mother's, and now hers; she had inherited him. This thought
caused her to smile, but there were tears in her eyes. A garden some
day to play in, this mad city far away, a home of her own; would it ever
happen?

The bell rang. She wasn't going to like this caller for taking her away
from these roses, the first she had received in a long time--roses she
could keep and not toss out the window. For it must not be understood
that Kitty was never besieged.

Outside stood a well-dressed gentleman, older than Cutty, with shrewd,
inquiring gray eyes and a face with strong salients.

"Pardon me, but I am looking for a man by the name of Stephen Gregory. I
was referred by the janitor to you. You are Miss Conover?"

"Yes," answered Kitty. "Will you come in?" She ushered the stranger into
the living room and indicated a chair. "Please excuse me for a moment."
Kitty went into her bedroom and touched the danger