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Again she paused; again it was less of a question than a command. With interest Everett gazed at the whitewashed ceiling.

“I have not yet,” he said, “communicated them to any one.”

That night, after dinner in the patio, he reported to Garland the words of the Mother Superior.

“That was my dream, 0 Prophet,” concluded Everett; “you who can read this land of lotus-eaters, interpret! What does it mean?”

“It only means what I’ve been telling you,” said the consul. “It means that if you’re going after that treaty, you’ve only got to fight the Catholic Church. That’s all it means!”

Later in the evening Garland said: “I saw you this morning crossing the plaza with Monica. When I told you everybody in this town loved her, was I right?”

“Absolutely!” assented Everett. “But why didn’t you tell me she was a flapper?”

“I don’t know what a flapper is,” promptly retorted Garland. “And if I did, I wouldn’t call Monica one.”

“A flapper is a very charming person,” protested Everett. “I used the term in its most complimentary sense. It means a girl between fourteen and eighteen. It’s English slang, and in England at the present the flapper is very popular. She is driving her sophisticated elder sister, who has been out two or three seasons, and the predatory married woman to the wall. To men of my years the flapper is really at the dangerous age.”

In his bamboo chair Garland tossed violently and snorted.

“I sized you up,” he cried, “as a man of the finest perceptions. I was wrong. You don’t appreciate Monica! Dangerous! You might as well say God’s sunshine is dangerous, or a beautiful flower is dangerous.”

Everett shook his head at the other man reproachfully:

“Did you ever hear of a sunstroke?” he demanded. “Don’t you know if you smell certain beautiful flowers you die? Can’t you grasp any other kind of danger than being run down by a trolley-car? Is the danger of losing one’s peace of mind nothing, of being unfaithful to duty, nothing! Is–“

Garland raised his arms.

“Don’t shoot!” he begged. “I apologize. You do appreciate Monica. You have your consul’s permission to walk with her again.”

The next day young Professor Peabody called and presented his letters. He was a forceful young man to whom the delays of diplomacy did not appeal, and one apparently accustomed to riding off whatever came in his way. He seemed to consider any one who opposed him, or who even disagreed with his conclusions, as offering a personal affront. With indignation he launched into his grievance.

“These people,” he declared, “are dogs in the manger, and Ward is the worst of the lot. He knows no more of archaeology than a congressman. The man’s a faker! He showed me a spear-head of obsidian and called it flint; and he said the Aztecs borrowed from the Mayas, and that the Toltecs were a myth. And he got the Aztec solar calendar mixed with the Ahau. He’s as ignorant as that.”

“I can’t believe it!” exclaimed Everett.

“You may laugh,” protested the professor, “but the ruins of Cobre hold secrets the students of two continents are trying to solve. They hide the history of a lost race, and I submit it’s not proper one man should keep that knowledge from the world, certainly not for a few gold armlets!”

Everett raised his eyes.

“What makes you say that?”‘ he demanded.

“I’ve been kicking my heels in this town for a month,” Peabody told him, “and I’ve talked to the people here, and to the Harvard expedition at Copan, and everybody tells me this fellow has found treasure.” The archaeologist exclaimed with indignation: “What’s gold,” he snorted, “compared to the discovery of a lost race?”

“I applaud your point of view,” Everett assured him. “I am to see the President tomorrow, and I will lay the matter before him. I’ll ask him to give you a look in.”