"Trust my Nelson eye!" said the captain.

When Antipodal Day arrived, every one felt called upon to celebrate it. The guileless tried to see the imaginary line of the meridian which the sophisticated pointed out to them on the water; the cream-peppermint lady went so far as to say she felt the jar as the steamer passed over it. Conjectures, witty, mathematical, or inane, were made as to the identity of to-day, if yesterday was Friday and to-morrow going to be Saturday.

During the morning Percival wandered disconsolately from one part of the ship to another. Despite the fact that he was quite determined to keep away from Bobby, he chafed under her seeming indifference. After that intimate hour together in the wind-shelter it was strange that she could be so oblivious of his presence. It was distasteful to him to have to signal the train of her attention. To be sure, a very little signal served,—a word, a look, a thoughtful gesture,—but he preferred a homage that required no prompting. Moreover, she was guilty of "smiling on all she looked upon," and her acceptance of Andy Black into the ever-widening circle of her admirers offended him deeply.

The day dragged interminably. By five o'clock in the afternoon a tango-tea was in progress, and it seemed to Percival that everybody on board was dancing except the missionaries and himself. Even they were taking part as spectators, having secured their places half an hour before the appointed time in order not to miss a moment of the shocking exhibition.

Percival went to the upper deck and sought the most secluded corner he could find, but even there he was haunted by the soul-disturbing music. Dancing was one of his accomplishments, and he had trod stately measures through half a dozen London seasons, the admiration and the despair of more than one aspiring mama. He looked with great disapproval upon these new and boisterous American dances, he wondered if they were as difficult as they looked. Seeing nobody about, he rose and tentatively tried a few steps behind the shelter of a life-boat. He found it interesting, and was getting quite pleased over his cleverness in catching the syncopated time, when he spied an impertinent sailor grinning at him from the rigging. Instantly his legs became rigid, and he affected an interest in the horizon intended to convince the sailor that he had been the victim of an optical illusion. Of course it was quite beneath his dignity to take part in these rollicking dances, especially in such a public place as on shipboard. He realized that fully; yet he thought of Bobby and sighed. There were actually times in his life when he almost wished he had been born in the middle class.

Then he drew himself up sharply. If there was one thing incumbent upon the second son of the late Lord Westenhanger, it was that he maintain his position. Though grievously disappointed in his failure to capture the incomparable Lady Hortense, he must don his armor and ride forth again to find another lady, differing in kind, perhaps, but not in degree. In his scheme of things wild young daughters of American sea-captains had no place whatever.

Yet even as he made this assertion he found himself moving toward the companionway and down to the deck below.

"Will you sit out the next dance with me?" he heard himself murmuring to Bobby over her partner's shoulder.

"You bet I will," said Bobby with a smile that made him forget the awfulness of her language.

Ten minutes later they were leaning over the rail on the deserted boat-deck, the wind full in their faces, watching the prow of the steamer gently rise and fall as she sailed straight into the golden heart of the sun. Up from the horizon spread wave after wave; of perilous color, emerald melting into azure, crimson dying into rose. There was just enough breeze to put a tiny feather on the windward slope of the waves, and every white crest caught the glory.

"This is better than all the tangoing in the world," cried Bobby. "Have you been up here all afternoon?"

"I have. You see, all those people below get rather on one's nerves."

"Do I?" she challenged him instantly.

"Not on one's nerves exactly," he said, thrillingly aware that her arm was touching his on the railing and that the dangerous pink light was playing over her face; "but I must say you do get on one's—one's mind!"

She laughed gaily.

"Well, that's next to having nothing on your mind. Say, you wouldn't think I had the blues, would you?"

"Can't say I should."

"Well, I have. I've been so homesick all day that I could go round the corner and cry if you—if you hadn't said I mustn't."

"What are you homesick for?"

"Oh, for the old ranch and the ponies and my dogs and—and lots of things. See the way the wind flecks the water over there? Well, that's just the way it does the grasslands back home."

"But it's such a parched, barren sort of a place, Wyoming."

"It is not. You ought to see it in the early spring, when everything is vivid green, and the cactus is in bloom—the red-flowered kind that looks so pretty against the sides of the gray buttes. Why, you can gallop for miles with your horse's hoofs sinking into beds of prairie roses!"

"But it's virtually green in England all the year round. I'd like to show you a well-run English estate. Rather a pretty sight. Hascombe Hall's a fairly decent example. Some hundreds of acres, don't you know."

"Some hundreds!" repeated Bobby, scornfully. "Our ranch covers two hundred thousand acres, and it takes Pa Joe four days' hard riding to get over it!"

"Oh, I say, most extraordinary! But if I were you, I wouldn't think about home affairs," said Percival, to whom her background in Wyoming was of no consequence. He liked to think of her as having begun to live when she met him, and as gracefully ceasing to exist when they parted.

"All right," said Bobby, resignedly. "I've kept bottled up this long; I suppose I can manage the rest of the time. What's that book you've been reading?"

"Shelley."

"Is it a love-story?"

Percival winced.

"It is poetry," he said. "I shouldn't mind reading you a bit, if you like."

She did like. She evidently liked tremendously. She listened as an inquisitive bird might listen to a strange wood note, with her head on one side and her bright eyes intent upon his face.

When Percival's perfectly modulated voice ceased, she sighed:

"I didn't understand a word of it," she said, "but I could listen to you read forever. It makes me think of the wind in the trees, and all the lovely things that ever happened to me."

"But don't you like the poem?"



"I like the way your mouth looks when you read it. Your chin's nice, too, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Percival, with an unsuccessful effort at indifference; "it's the Hascombe chin. Been in the family for generations."

"Think of having a chin as old as that! Perhaps that's what makes you so solemn."

"Am I solemn?"

"Awfully. Elise Weston says she believes you have been crossed in love."

The hollow chambers of Percival's heart reverberated with alarming echoes. He shot a suspicious glance at Bobby, but her innocent gaze reassured him.

"I am afraid your friend Miss Weston is romantic," he said stiffly. "Am I keeping you too long from the dance?"

"Oh, no," said Bobby, comfortably. "I've got the next with Andy Black. He'll never think to look up here. But are you quite sure I'm not getting on your nerves?"

"I am quite sure you are a most awfully charming girl," Percival exclaimed with sudden warmth. "As a matter of fact, I—I like you tremendously."

"That's nice," said Bobby, "because, you see, I like you!"

There was no reason why her avowal should have been regarded as more serious than his own. But he took alarm instantly.

"You won't mind my telling you a few things for your own good, will you?" he asked, taking refuge in the safe role of mentor.

"Not a bit," said Bobby; "fire away."

She listened for five minutes to his dissertation on the impropriety of young ladies playing poker in the smoking-room, then she became restive.

"Isn't it funny," she said by way of changing the subject, "that yesterday was Friday, and to-morrow is going to be Saturday, and to-day isn't anything?"

"But it is something. It's a day I shall remember."

Percival was drifting again, and he knew it, but there was that in the bewitching face upturned to his that demoralized him.

"No," said Bobby, "it's the day that never was. We just picked it up out of the sea, and we are going to drop it back again. Whatever happens to-day doesn't count."

"Why?"

"Because by to-morrow, you see, to-day never will have been."

"Deuced clever idea that, I call it. Never thought of it. Suppose we celebrate by way of doing something that we wouldn't do if it counted."

Bobby clapped her hands. "What shall it be?"

"Well, suppose for the rest of the day you consider me the person you quite like best in the world."

She considered it.

"All right. I don't mind for the rest of the day. And you promise to forget all those girls over in England, and pretend that I am the nicest girl you know?"

"I promise," said Percival.

When the second gong for dinner sounded, the two white-clad figures were still leaning on the railing in the secluded angle made by two life-boats. The color had gone from the sky, but every moment the purpling waters were growing more vivid, more intense, more thrillingly alive to the mystery of the coming night. The Honorable Percival's cap was on Bobby's head, and his coat was about her shoulders. As to himself, he seemed strangely indifferent to the tumbled state of his wind-blown hair and the shocking informality of his shirt-sleeves. It was quite evident that for the time being, at least, he had thrown discretion to the winds, and was sailing away from his memories at the rate of sixteen knots an hour.

That night at dinner the captain followed Mrs. Weston's advice and took soundings. Nothing was lost upon him, from Bobby's late arrival in a somewhat sophisticated white evening gown that she had hitherto scorned, to the new and becoming way in which her hair was arranged. It did not require a Nelson eye to discover a suppressed excitement under her high spirits or to detect the side-play that was taking place between her and the apparently stolid Englishman at her right.

Captain Boynton looked at Mrs. Weston and raised one eyebrow; she nodded comprehendingly. Later in the evening, when he dropped into a steamer-chair beside her, he asked if she had seen Bobby.

"Not since dinner. All the young people have been asking for her. Did you look in the writing-room ?"

"I've looked everywhere except in the coal-bunkers," said the captain, gruffly. "Talk to me about responsibility. I'd rather run a schooner up the Hoogli than to steer that girl of mine."

"You've wakened to your duty rather late, haven't you!" asked Mrs. Weston. "I suppose it's the Englishman who is making you anxious?"

The captain dropped his voice.

"Did you see the way she looked at him at dinner? By George! it was enough to melt the leg off an iron pot!"

"It's been coming for a week," said Mrs. Weston, wisely. "If you really oppose it, there is no time to be lost."

"Oppose it? Of course I oppose it. What's to be done?"

"The situation requires delicate handling. Would you like me to try and help you out—share the responsibility of chaperoning her, I mean?"

"Permanently?" asked the captain, shooting a quizzical glance at her from under his heavy brows.

"You wretch!" said Mrs. Weston, flushing. "Just to Hong-Kong, I mean."

That night about ten o'clock the captain, who happened to be crossing the steerage deck, came quite unexpectedly upon Percival and Bobby groping their way through the dark.



"Roberta," he called sternly, "What are you doing out here?"

"Oh," cried Bobby, breathlessly, feeling her way around the hatch, "we've been out on the prow for hours, and it was simply gorgeous. All inky black except the phosphorescence, miles and miles of it! And some dolphins, all covered with silver, kept racing with us and leaping clear out of the water, like wriggly bits of fire. And the stars—why, Mr. Hascombe's been telling me the most fascinating things I ever heard about stars. We've had a perfectly wonderful time, haven't we, Mr. Hascombe?"

"Topping!" said the Honorable Percival.



VIII

IN THE CROW'S-NEST

The sea-voyage of thirty days, which in the beginning had threatened to stretch into eternity, now seemed to be racing into the past with a swiftness that was incredible. To Percival the one desirable thing in life had come to be the sailing of the high seas under favoring winds, in a big ship, with Bobby Boynton on board, and a conscience that had agreed to remain quiescent until port was reached.

Not that Percival's conscience succumbed without a struggle; he had to assure it repeatedly that he would refrain from rousing in Bobby any hopes that might be realized. The moment she showed the slightest sign of taking his attentions seriously he would kindly, but firmly, make her understand. It would not be the first time he had had to do this. He recalled several instances with sad complacency. But a man cannot always be sacrificing himself. A mild flirtation, with a girl whom he never expected to see again was surely a harmless way of consoling himself for the harsh treatment he had recently received from another of her sex.

The one fly in his amber these days was Andy Black; only Andy was not a fixed object. His activities were endless, and, strangely enough, they exerted a powerful influence on Percival, causing him to change his entire mode of life from his hour of getting up to his hour of retiring. In order to get half an hour's conversation with Bobby Boynton it was necessary to outwit Andy, and he was devoting himself assiduously to the task.

What complicated the matter was that Andy had embraced him in his general affection for humanity, and despite persistent snubbing continued to treat him as the friend of his bosom. Percival could hate him contemptuously when he was out of sight, but he found it difficult to keep up the dislike when the fat, boyish fellow sat on the sofa opposite his berth and poured out his innermost confidences.

"You see," he would say plaintively as he reached for Percival's silver shoe-horn, "I never slide into love, like most fellows. I always splash right in, head first. That's what I did the first night I came on board, and I haven't come up yet. When I do, she'll hit me in the head. She won't have me; you see if she does."

Of course Percival agreed with him, but in the meanwhile he wondered what Bobby could find in him to afford her such constant amusement.

One sparkling morning when the white caps were dancing on the blue water, and every bit of loose canvas was spanking the wind for joy, Bobby announced that she was going again to the crow's-nest. She had circled the deck some ten times between her two cavaliers, and the difficulty of keeping mental step with either in the presence of the other may have influenced her sudden decision.

"What do you want to do that for?" said Andy, whose weight made him cautious. "It's a mean climb, and there's nothing to see when you get up there."

"There's everything to see," said Bobby and she looked at Percival.

Ten days ago nothing could have induced him to do such an unconventional and conspicuous thing. He remembered the exact phrase he had applied to it when told by the Scotchman of Bobby's previous adventure. "Characteristically American," he had remarked, with a disparaging shrug.

Now, with assumed languor, he said, "I don't mind going with you."

Two sailors were found to tie the ropes around their waists and stand guard below while they slowly and cautiously climbed from one swaying rung to another.

"All right?" asked Bobby, looking down over her shoulder.

"Right as rain," called Percival, with suggestion of eagerness in his voice.

He followed her cautiously as she scrambled like a squirrel from the top of the ladder to the crow's-nest. Swinging through the clear sky one hundred feet above the water below, they found themselves in the sudden intimacy of a vast and magnificent solitude. The sapphire sky met the sapphire sea in a sharply defined, unbroken line around them, while shimmers of palpitating light rose from the sparkling waters until they lost themselves in the zenith above.

"Oh, look! look!" cried Bobby, with an eager hand on Percival's arm. Turning, he saw the water suddenly disturbed by hundreds of curved bodies that glistened in the sunlight as they leaped together in a perfect riot of joy.

"Silly old fish, the porpoise," he said, "always making circles in the water like that"

But the ennui expressed in his words was not reflected in his face. Even silly old porpoises acquire an interest when one's attention is called to them by a small and shapely hand that forgets in the enthusiasm of the moment to remove itself from one's arm. It was only by sharply calling to mind the haughty faces of his mother and sisters that he refrained from indiscretion.

"You don't mind?" he asked, drawing his cigar-case from his pocket. "Deuced clever of you, I call it, to think of coming up here. How did you know that Black fellow wouldn't come?"

"He's too fat to climb," said Bobby. "He doesn't even like to walk."

"Thought he was quite keen about it from the way he walked with us every evening. A decent chap would not intrude."

"That's funny!" said Bobby, with twinkling eyes. "That's almost exactly what he said about you, only he didn't say intrude."

"What did he say?"

"Butt in," said Bobby.

The Honorable Percival suffered one of those acute revulsions that had become less frequent of late. At such times he marveled at himself for permitting such vulgarity in his presence.

"You Americans have the most extraordinary expressions, Miss Boynton!" he said.

"How queer that sounds!"

"What?"

"Miss Boynton. I thought you'd got to the Bobby stage. Perhaps you'd rather make it Roberta."

"Yes, I think I should, if I may."

For a few seconds they dropped into silence, he puffing away at his cigar, and she gazing off to the horizon as if she had quite forgotten his presence.

"Were you ever in love?" she asked, turning on him suddenly.

"Why do you ask?" he said, scrutinizing the ash of his cigar.

"Because it's so queer you never got married. I thought young Englishmen with names and estates to keep up always married right away."

"Well, I suppose they do, as a rule. The Hascombes are rather different. Of course there have been a lot of girls who were foolish enough to—er—to think—"

"To think they were in love with you? Go ahead! I'll shut my eyes."

Instead, she opened them very wide, and he had to unbutton his coat just for the sake of buttoning it up again.

"But I don't care about them," she went on; "I want to know if you've ever been in love."

"Imagined I was once."

"Oh, what fun! Tell me about it from beginning to end!"

"How do you know it had an end!"

"I'd gamble on it," said Bobby, confidently. "But tell me!"

Just why Percival at this moment felt a sudden desire to discuss a subject that hitherto he had shrunk from the slightest reference to can be explained only by the fact that the confiding of an unhappy love affair to a sympathetic member of the opposite sex seems a necessary stage of convalescence. It was the first chance he had had to present his version of the story to an unbiased listener, and if he omitted certain details, and laid undue stress upon others, it must not be held against him.

"Of course," he said in conclusion, "through a sense of honor I'd have gone through with it. Fortunately, it was not necessary. Poor girl broke it off herself."

He spoke as of one who had committed suicide, but in regard to whom a kindly jury would have brought in a verdict of temporary insanity.

"Well, I think you were perfectly splendid, all through," cried Bobby. "What sort of a girl could she have been to act like that?"

He took several long, satisfying pulls at his cigar; it was astonishing how much he was enjoying it, and the conversation as well.

"Oh, she's quite one of the best, you know. Dare say she thought it was all my fault."

"The idea! Was she pretty?"

"Opinions differ."

"Smart?"

"Rather!"

"Jolly?"

"Well, no, not exactly jolly; that's not quite the word."

"Very proper, I suppose,"

"Oh, yes, absolutely; most decidedly so. Perfect stickler for form."

Bobby sighed.

"Just the opposite from me all the way through. Well, I'm glad you wouldn't make up. Serves her right."

"Probably best for everybody," said Percival. "Now it's your turn. How about yourself!"

"Well," she said with what struck him as the strangest irrelevance, "our scheme seems to be working with the captain. We've got him guessing. He told me last night I was not to go to the prow with you again."

"Why not?"

"He thinks you like me too much."

"What do you think?"

Percival bit his lip the moment he had asked it, but leaning there on the railing, with her dancing eyes on a level with his own, and nothing else on the entire horizon, it was difficult to keep the situation in hand.

"I think you are getting a bully tan," she said, scrutinizing him closely; "most men get a red nose or else they get all speckled around the edges. Yours looks like a nice crust on an apple pie."

"I do tan rather decently," he said; "but you haven't told me what you think."

"What about?"

"About my liking you too much."

"I think the captain exaggerated."

"He couldn't exaggerate that."

"But how can you like me when I'm all wrong?"

"I like you because of your possibilities. You've probably never met any one before who understood you as I do. Quite extraordinary the way you've improved since you came on board."

"And you've got fourteen days more to work on me! Do you think anybody will recognize me when I get back to Wyoming?"

"Now you are chaffing!" complained Percival. "You never take me seriously."

"Then you want me to be serious, and believe everything you say?"

He paused in awed contemplation of the direful consequences if she should, but for the life of him he couldn't stop.

"I want you to believe me," he said tenderly, "when I say that you've been most awfully sweet, and that I wouldn't give half a sovereign for any other girl's chances if you were within ten miles. I want you to know that I consider you the prettiest girl I've ever seen, and the most—"

Bobby tightened the rope about her waist.

"It's time for me to be going," she exclaimed in mock alarm, "If you keep on saying things like that, I may furnish another scalp to that collection you were telling me about. I don't dare stay another minute."

Neither did Percival. He followed her down the ladder as if he had been escaping from quicksands.

That night the crow's-nest was added to the prow on the list of places about a ship which the captain felt young ladies should stay away from.



"You will have to join the crowd," suggested Bobby when Percival complained of not seeing her as often as he wished. "We sing up on the boat-deck every night, and now the moon is up, it's perfectly gorgeous."

But Percival's abhorrence of crowds made him hold out resolutely until the day before they were to land in Japan. Everybody was making plans for the few days to be spent in port, and small parties were being formed to leave the steamer at Yokohama and join it three days later at Kobe. Percival was annoyed because the steamer had to stop at all. Any interruption in the present routine was a nuisance. He vacillated between the inconvenience of going ashore and the stupidity of remaining on board. An invitation from Mrs. Weston to join her party, and an insistent demand from Bobby Boynton, decided him. He made his preparations accordingly.

But an unforeseen incident occurred the night before the Saluria landed which caused him suddenly to change his plans. He was just ready to go below for the night when an overmastering desire for one more word with Bobby seized him. By a bit of Machiavellian strategy he had outwitted Andy that afternoon, and had her entirely to himself for three blissful hours.

It was in their old haunt behind the wind-shelter, and he had taken the opportunity, if not to "shatter her to bits," at least "to remold her nearer to the heart's desire." He had done it with consummate tact, and she had responded with adorable docility. He never admired himself more than in the role of cicerone to a young and trusting maid. By the subtlest methods he knew how to convey approval or disapproval of anything from a beaded slipper to a moral sentiment. He could stir dormant ambition, rouse lagging courage, inspire patience, and all he demanded in return was unfaltering homage from the fair one.

In the present instance, however, the entire time was not devoted to correcting faults of manner and speech or to acquiring the higher Christian virtues. It was incredible how many things they found to talk about, considering the fact that art, literature, music, the drama, foreign travel, and London gossip were not among them. Bobby's way of diving unexpectedly from the general into the personal made a tete-a-tete with her peculiarly exhilarating.

The trouble was that the more one had, the more one wanted, and going to bed now without a parting word seemed to Percival really more than he had a right to ask of himself. He circled the deck several times in indecision, then he ascended the companionway and made his way aft.

A full moon hung high in the heavens, and a flood of silver poured in a dazzling stream across the level surface of the sea. The quarter-deck, the white boats amidships, and all the brass work abaft the funnels reflected the radiance.

"See who is here!" cried the irrepressible Andy from an indistinguishable group that huddled together under steamer-rugs against the big blue-and-white smoke-stack.

"May I speak to Miss Boynton for a moment?" asked Percival, icily.

"I'm afraid I can't get out," said Bobby. "Elise is sitting on my feet, and Andy and I've got on the same sweater. There's a place for you here, if you will come."

It is really too undignified an act in the life of the Honorable Percival to chronicle, but before he had time to contradict his impulse, he had actually doubled up his long legs and crawled into the small space Bobby made for him beside her. If she persisted in preferring this noisy bunch of inanity to a quiet stroll on the promenade-deck with him, then he supposed for the time being he must humor her.

Youth and love and moonlight at sea are a magic combination, however, and Percival soon decided that even though it was deuced uncomfortable to be huddled up like that, with both feet asleep, yet there were compensations.

"Sing!" commanded Bobby, and he joined obediently in the chorus. As the night wore on a caressing coolness crept into the air, and the crowd gathered into a closer group. Percival could feel Bobby breathing near him, and could look down undisturbed into her upturned face as she sang with passionate abandon to the moon. She seemed to have entirely lost sight of her surroundings and was off on some high adventure of her own, leaving him free to watch her to his heart's content.

It was a situation fraught with danger; yet he lingered. He did more: he slipped his hand beneath the rug and sought cautiously for hers. As their palms met, and her small fingers closed responsively over his, such a thrill of satisfaction passed over him as he had never felt before. His old wounds were suddenly healed, life became a passionate love-song on a languorous, moonlit sea. But his ecstasy ceased with the music. Bobby's voice broke the spell with frightful distinctness:



"If you want to hold my hand, Mr. Hascombe, you are welcome to it. Andy's got the other one; but if you don't mind, we'll put them all together, like that, on top of the steamer-rug."

During the laugh that followed he managed to got to his feet and make his escape. He had never been so angry in his life; he even included himself in his devastating wrath. Why shouldn't he have been insulted, laughed at, jeered at! When one allows oneself to associate with such people, he ought to expect such behavior.

"Plebeians!" he snarled as he jerked together the curtains of his berth and turned his face to the wall.



IX

DRAGGING ANCHOR

Of course, after what had happened, nothing could induce Percival to join the Weston party in Japan. He left a note of formal regret, and hastened ashore on the first launch in the morning. His one desire was to avoid those detestable young Americans, whose diabolical laughter had rung in his ears all night. The wounds received by vanity are never serious, but they are very hard to heal, and as Percival stopped ashore in this strange land he felt that he was the most unhappy of mortals.

"Call a hansom," he demanded impatiently of Judson, who stood grinning at the queer sights on the hatoba.

"There ain't none, sir."

"Of course; I forgot. But how are we to get to the hotel?"

"Carn't say, sir, unless we go in a couple of them perambulators."

Percival took an instant dislike to a country that forced him to ride in a ridiculous vehicle, pulled by a small bare-legged brown man in a mushroom hat. All the way to the hotel he was unhappy in the conviction that he was making a spectacle of himself.

The rooms which he had engaged in advance were not satisfactory, and it was not until he had inspected all the suites that were unoccupied that he decided upon one that commanded a view of the bay. Once established therein, he despatched Judson for his mail and for any English papers that might be found, then took up his position by a front window and sternly watched the bund.

The picturesque harbor, full of sampans and junks, the gay streets, full of color and movement, the thousand unfamiliar sights and sounds, held no interest for the Honorable Percival. His whole attention was focused upon the jinrikishas that constantly arrived and departed at the entrance below.

He wanted to see Bobby's face and read there the signs of contrition, which he felt sure must have followed her unfeeling conduct of the night before. But he intended to punish her before he forgave. Such a violence to their friendship could not go unrebuked. Even when he received the note of apology which he felt sure she would send up the moment she reached the hotel, he would delay answering it. She must be made to suffer in order to profit by this unhappy experience.

His reflections were interrupted by a rap at the door, which called him away from the window. It proved to be a sleek Chinaman, who proffered his card, bearing the inscription:

"G. Lung Fat, Ladies' and Gents' Tailer."

G. Lung Fat, it seemed, had beheld Percival in the lobby and been greatly impressed with his bearing. It would be an honor, he urged, with the fervor of an artist craving permission to paint a subject that had captured his fancy, to cut, fit, and finish any number of garments for such a figure before the ship sailed on the morrow.

Percival was impressed. He examined the samples with the air of a connoisseur. Like most Englishmen, he had a weakness for light clothes and sun-helmets. The regalia suggested English supremacy in foreign lands. He had ordered his fourth suit and was earnestly considering a white dinner-jacket when familiar voices from the street below made him spring to the window.

It was Bobby Boynton and Andy Black, who were evidently setting forth in jinrikishas alone, Mrs. Weston and the other young people remaining to inspect the fascinating array of curios that were being displayed on the pavement. If any sorrow for past misdeeds dwelt in Bobby's bosom, there was certainly no trace of it on her face as she called gaily back over her shoulder:

"We are off for a lark; you needn't look for us until you see us."

Percival dismissed the Chinaman peremptorily, and paced his room in indignation. It was incredible that a girl who had basked in the sun of his approval could find even temporary pleasure in the feeble rushlight of Andy Black's society. Not that it made the slightest difference to him where she went or with whom. If her father saw fit to permit her to go forth in a strange city with a strange man, unchaperoned, of course it was not for him to interfere. But that she should have, at the first opportunity, disregarded his counsels, to which she had listened with such flattering attention, angered him beyond measure. He bitterly assured himself that all women were alike, an assertion which seems to bring universal relief to the masculine mind.

His ill humor was not decreased when Judson returned, after a long delay, and reported that the mail had been sent to the steamer. Not content with being the bearer of this unpleasant news, Judson committed the indiscretion of waxing eloquent over the charms of Japan. Percival considered it impertinent in an inferior to express enthusiasm for anything that was under the ban of his disapproval. Before the discussion ended it became his painful duty to remind Judson of the fact that he was an ass.

At tiffin-time, when he descended to the dining-room, owing to the recent arrival of two steamers, all the tables were engaged. There was one in the corridor, he was told, if he did not mind another gentleman. He did mind; he much preferred a table alone, but he also wanted his luncheon. He followed the unctuous head waiter the length of the big dining-room, winding in and out among the small tables, only to emerge finally into the corridor and find himself face to face with his bete noire, Captain Boynton.

"Hello! Can't lose you," was the captain's gruff greeting. "How does it happen that you aren't off with the crowd doing the sights?"

"Sights bore me," said Percival, unfolding his napkin with an air of lassitude.

"Crowds, too, eh? Twoing more in your line?"

The remark was treated with contemptuous silence while Percival devoted himself to the menu.

"Seen that girl of mine since she came ashore?" continued the captain.

"Miss Boynton?" asked Percival, as if not quite sure of the identity of the person inquired for. "Oh, yes, I believe I did see her early this morning. She went out with Mr. Black."

"Good! He'll show her a thing or two."

"Rather extraordinary," Percival could not help commenting, "the way young American girls go about alone like that."

"Alone? What's the matter with Andy?"

"But I mean unchaperoned. Dare say young Black is very good in his way, but he can't be called discreet."

"How do you mean?"

"Taking your daughter into that nasty mess of Chinamen in the steerage, for instance, to watch them play fan-tan."

"What of that? She only lost a couple of quarters and had a dollar's worth of fun. Can't see it was any worse than keeping her out at the prow until midnight, or taking her up to the crow's-nest." The captain pushed back his chair, and smiled with maddening significance. "See here, my young friend, you needn't worry about Bobby. She's been taking care of herself for twenty years. You better look after yourself."

The Honorable Percival did not answer. He got his eye-glass right and looked straight ahead of him.

But the captain was not through. He leaned across the table and shook a warning finger:

"Beware of J. Lucy," he said, then he took a smiling departure.

Through the rest of the meal and well into the afternoon Percival puzzled his brain over that cryptic warning. When its meaning dawned upon him he flung "Guillim's Display of Heraldry" clear across the room, and used language not becoming an English gentleman. He assured himself for the hundredth time that Americans were the most odious people in the world, and the captain the most convincing proof of it.

The afternoon dragged miserably, and the prospect of waiting about the hotel until the steamer sailed at noon the next day appalled him. The obvious thing, of course, was to go out and see the city, but he had declared to Judson that there was nothing worth seeing, and one must be consistent before one's servants. Even the morrow offered no abatement to his misery. Most of the people he knew were going from Yokohama to Kobe by rail, and he pictured himself the only guest at the captain's table for three mortal days.

At three o'clock he went down to the terrace and took his seat at a small table that commanded a view of the hotel entrance. To one with a free mind the scene was highly diverting, with jinrikishas and occasional victorias thronging the bund, and gay parties constantly arriving and departing. Coolies in blue, with mysterious Chinese lettering on their kimonos and with bright towels about their heads, trotted past; women with blackened teeth and with babies strapped on their backs clattered by on wooden shoes; street venders sang their savory wares; merchants displayed treasures of lacquer and ivory, street dancers posed and sang to the tinkle of the samisen.

But to Percival it was at best a purgatory where he seemed to be doomed to wait through eternity. Not that he meant to speak to Bobby Boynton when she arrived or make the slightest sign of forgiveness. That she should have allowed Andy Black to keep her out from eleven in the morning until after three in the afternoon was even more shocking than her behavior to him the night before. He was resolved to show her by every means in his power that to even a disinterested acquaintance like himself her conduct was wholly unpardonable. Meanwhile that emotion to which the captain had so grossly alluded took entire and absorbing possession of him.

Toward the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Weston joined him on the terrace in an anxious mood.

"Have you seen anything of that naughty Bobby Boynton?" she asked. "I am quite distracted about her. Our train for Kioto leaves in half an hour. You don't suppose anything has happened to her, do you?"

"I really can't say," said Percival, with a shrug that suggested the direst possibilities.

"We simply must go on to Kioto tonight," continued Mrs. Weston, anxiously nervous. "My cousin would never forgive me if I disappointed him. You see, he's lived in Kioto for years, and he's promised to take us out to an old Buddhist temple on a wonderful sacred mountain that I can't pronounce. We've been looking forward to it for weeks."

Percival stood back of his chair and watched his tea getting cold. The suggestion of something having happened to Bobby had changed his anger to sharp solicitude. Gruesome tales of brutality toward foreigners in Eastern ports came back to him.

"I wonder," said Mrs. Weston, persuasively, "if you would mind taking a jinrikisha and going down to Benten Dori to see if they are there. I have no one else to send."

"I don't know that I should care to go myself," said Percival, "but I'll send my man."

Judson having been despatched, Percival with difficulty refrained from following him. Mrs. Weston's solicitude as she hovered between the telephone-booth and the desk was infectious, and he found himself pacing from entrance to entrance, imagining the most calamitous causes for the delay.

It was not until a joyful exclamation from Elise Weston announced the approach of the truants that he drew a deep breath of relief and retired to the reading-room. He was more than ever resolved not to see Bobby; to her former transgressions was now added the new and unpardonable offense of having made him acutely anxious about her.

He took up an old copy of the "Graphic," and resolutely read of events that had taken place before he left England. He even glanced through the pages of the innocuous "Gentlewoman," and tried to concentrate upon an article entitled "Favorite Fabrics for Autumn." In vain were his efforts; every sound from the lobby or the street claimed his instant attention. At last, when an unmistakable commotion without gave evidence that the Weston party was leaving, he got up, despite himself, and went to the window.

They were all there, Mrs. Weston, Elise, the Scotchman, Andy, and Bobby, all climbing into their jinrikishas in the greatest possible haste and in the highest possible spirits. One after another the jinrikishas trundled away, until only Bobby's was left while her runner adjusted his sandal. Percival saw her turn in her seat and eagerly scan the terrace and the windows of the hotel. Then suddenly she caught sight of him, and her face broke into a radiant smile as she waved her hand and nodded.

A moment later and his eyes were straining after a figure that was fast disappearing up the bund. It was a small, alert figure, disturbingly young and sweet and buoyant. The flying jinrikisha, the hair blowing across her cheek, the scarf that fluttered in the breeze, all suggested flight, and flight to the masculine mind is only another term for pursuit.

He flung down his paper and strode out to the lobby.

"When is the next train for Kioto?" he demanded.

"At ten to-night, sir."

"Make out my bill, and get my luggage down; I'm leaving on that train."

"But, sir, you have made no reservation. You may have to sit up all night."

"Have you any objections?" asked the Honorable Percival in his most insular manner.



X

ON THE SEARCH

The clerk's prophecy proved all too true. Percival and his valet sat all night in a crowded, smoke-dimmed car, between a fat Japanese wrestler and a fatter Buddhist priest, both of whom squatted on their heels and read aloud in monotonous, wailing tones. The air was close, and the floor was strewn with orange peel, spilt tea, and cigarette ends. Percival's fastidious senses were offended as they had never been offended before. Under ordinary circumstances nothing could have induced him to submit to such discomfort, but the circumstances were not ordinary.

The alternative of remaining calmly in Yokohama and allowing an aggressive young American to monopolize the girl of his even temporary choice was utterly intolerable. Moreover, he was coming to see that while Bobby had failed to droop under the frost of his displeasure, it was still probable that she would melt into penitence at the first smile of royal forgiveness.

During the long hours of that interminable night he had ample time to reflect upon the folly of pursuing an object which he did not mean to possess. But though wisdom urged discretion, a blue eye and a furtive dimple beckoned.

When morning came, he straightened his stiff legs and, picking his way through the wooden sandals that cluttered the aisle, went out to the small platform. The train had stopped at a village, and a boy with a tray suspended from his shoulders, bearing boxes of native food, was howling dismally:

"Bento! Eo Bento!"

Percival beckoned to him. "I say, can't you get me a roll and a cup of coffee!"

"Bento?" asked the boy, expectantly.

"Coffee!" shouted Percival. "Rather strong, you know, and hot."

"Tan San? Rhomenade?" asked the boy.

"Coffee. Cafe. What a silly fool!" Percival muttered.

About this time several windows in the car went up, and many voices took up the cry of "Bento." When Percival reentered, he found that a large pot of boiling water had been deposited in the aisle, and small tea-pots had been distributed among the passengers. Everybody was partaking of breakfast, and everybody seemed to be enjoying it, especially Judson, who was attacking his neatly arranged bamboo sprouts, pickled eels, and snowy rice with avidity.

"This is a bit of all right, sir," he said with enthusiasm. "Shall I fetch you a box, sir!"

Percival lifted a protesting hand. And yet the pungent odor of the pickle and the still smoking rice was not unpleasant. He watched with increasing appetite the disappearance of the various viands. There were occasions when a man might even envy his valet.

At the Kioto Hotel there was no record of the Weston party, so he snatched a hasty bite, and rushed on to the other large hotel. It was on a hillside well out from the city, and two coolies were required for each jinrikisha. Seeing that they had a newly arrived tourist, they were moved to show him the sights, much to Percival's annoyance.

"San-ju-san-gen-do Temple," the man in front said, putting down the shafts of the jinrikisha confidently. "Thirty-three thousand images of great god Kwannon. Come see? No? So desu ka?"

Later he stopped at a flower-girt tea-house.

"Geisha maybe! Very fine dancers. Come see? No? So desu ka?"

So it continued, the two small guides trying in vain to arouse some interest in the stern young gentleman who sat so rigidly in the jinrikisha, with his mind bent solely on reaching the Yaami Hotel in the shortest possible time.

On his arrival, he met with disappointment. The effusive proprietor informed him that a party of five, "one single lady, and two young married couples, he thought," had breakfasted there and left immediately with Dr. Weston for Hieizan. They would not return until night.

"What, pray, is Hieizan?" Percival asked, dimly remembering Mrs. Weston's outlined plan.

"Very grand mountain," said the proprietor; "view of Lake Biwa. Biggest pine-tree in the world."

The last thing that Percival desired to see was a big pine-tree, but the prospect of sharing the sight of it with Bobby Boynton spurred him to further inquiry.

"But they must come back, mustn't they? Perhaps I could meet them halfway?"

"Oh, yes. They go by kago over mountain; you go by 'rickisha to Otsu, and wait. Very nice, very easy. All come home together. I furnish fine jinrikisha and very good man, Sanno; spik very good English."

Percival had an early lunch, and, leaving Judson sitting disconsolately among the hand-bags, started for Otsu. From the first his runner justified his reputation of speaking English; he began by counting up to fifty, looking over his shoulder for approval, and expecting to be prompted when his memory failed. He received Percival's peremptory order to be silent with an uncomprehending smile and a glib recitation of the Twenty-third Psalm. He was an unusually tall coolie, and the jinrikisha-shafts resting in his hands were a foot higher than they ought to be, throwing his passenger at a most awkward angle. Before Otsu was reached a sudden rainstorm came on, and Percival was made yet more uncomfortable by having the hood of the jinrikisha put up, and a piece of stiff oilcloth tucked about him.

By the time he rattled into the courtyard of the small Japanese inn, he was cramped and cold and very cross. Even the voluble welcome of the proprietor and the four girls, who received him on their knees, failed to revive his spirits. It was going to be deuced awkward explaining his sudden appearance to the Weston party. There might even be jokes at his expense. He decided to take a room and not make his appearance unless everything seemed propitious.

An animated discussion was in progress between Sanno and the innkeeper, the import of which Sanno explained with much difficulty. Owing to the autumn festival of the imperial ancestors, the inn was quite full, but hospitality could not he refused to so distinguished a foreign guest.

"Foreign bedstead is not," concluded Sanno; "foreign food is not; hot bath is."

"I sha'n't want a bed, and I sha'n't want a bath," said Percival, then, seeing that a diminutive maiden was unloosing his shoes, he added petulantly: "My boots are quite dry. Tell her to go away."

But Sanno was getting his jinrikisha under cover, and Percival had to submit to the gentle, but firm, determination of the nesan. She was small and demure, but her attitude towards him was that of a nurse towards a refractory child. She conducted him, with much sliding of screens, through several compartments, to a room at the back of the house that opened out on a tiny balcony overhanging a noisy stream.

Percival, standing in his stockinged feet on the soft mats, looked about him. The room was devoid of furniture, its only decoration being a vase of carefully arranged flowers in an alcove, and a queer kakemono that hung on an ivory stick. As he was inspecting the latter, the nesan again approached him.

This time she seemed to have designs upon his coat, and despite his protest began to remove it. When he forestalled her at one point she attacked another, until the situation became so embarrassing that he shouted indignantly for Sanno.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded furiously. "Why doesn't the girl go away, and leave me alone?"

"Gentleman bass already," said Sanno, soothingly. "Kimono? So?" he joined forces with the nesan to get Percival out of his clothes and into the fresh-flowered kimono that lay on the mat.

"But I never take a tub in the afternoon," persisted Percival.

Preparations went politely, but steadily, forward.

"What's this she's putting on me?" he cried. "I say, I won't wear a sash; the whole thing's too beastly silly. Tell her to take it off."

But despite his protests, the long red scarf was wound about his waist and tied with many deft twists and pats into a butterfly bow at the back. Seeing that protests were quite useless, and being still chilled from his long ride, he decided to resist no longer, but to take the bath that was so insisted upon, and be free to watch undisturbed for the returning party.

The nesan produced a sponge and towel from her long sleeves and, taking Percival by the hand, led him down the hall. Once in the big, square wooden tank, with the hot water up to his chin, he forgot his trouble, and gave himself up to the luxury of the moment. Even the knowledge that the determined little nesan was waiting outside the door, and that she frequently applied a round, black eye to a hole in the screen, did not interfere with his enjoyment.

When he was again in his room, clothed except for his shoes, his troubles once more assailed him. Suppose the Weston party did not return by this route! The possibility of missing Bobby fired his desire to see her at once. He had never known twenty-four hours to contain so many minutes.

During the early stages of his malady it had only been necessary for him to recall the aristocratic faces and bearing of his mother and sisters to have his vision instantly cleared and his reason enthroned. Later it became necessary to add the captain's sturdy countenance to his list of exorcising spirits. Now Bobby routed them all, not only taking entire possession of his mind, but actually invading Hascombe Hall, dancing through the gloomy, corridors, and waking the echoes with her youth and merriment.

Of course the Honorable Percival tried to stamp out these wild imaginings, and assured himself repeatedly that the moment he landed in Hong-Kong the whole episode would be relegated to oblivion. But Hong-Kong was yet ten days away, and Percival saw no use in forgetting before he had to. He went out to the courtyard and impatiently surveyed the rain-soaked road.

"No come," said Sanno, cheerfully, from the step where he was keeping watch. "Tea?"

Without waiting for an answer, he clapped his hands, calling, "O Cha!"

Another small maiden in a cherry-blossom kimono, carrying a brazier full of live coals, trotted around the corner and conducted Percival back to his apartment. She proved even more irritating than the first one, for during the tea-making she stopped many times to examine his cuff-links, wrist-watch, and ring, making purring exclamations of delight over each discovery. When he used his monocle she tried it also, and when he took out his cigarette-case, she must examine every detail and help herself to a cigarette into the bargain. Percival was acutely bored. He regarded her as a persistent fly that refused to be brushed away. He sat with his back against the paper screen, his stockinged feet rigidly extended, drinking his tea as solemnly as if he had been in the most formal drawing-room of Grosvenor Square.

The rainy afternoon closed in to twilight, and still the Weston party did not come. Percival's impatience gave place to anger, but he doggedly waited.

"Could they have gone back another way?" he demanded of Sanno.

"Way?" repeated Sanno.

Percival made a drawing on paper and tried to convey his meaning, but it was useless.

"'Merican game?" asked Sanno, grinning.

At last, in desperation, Percival decided to return.

"Yaami Hotel, Kioto," he directed.

"Very sorry," said Sanno. "No come Kioto to-night. Big rain. Bridge him very bad. Jinrikisha upset, maybe."

Percival declared this to be nonsense; he insisted that he would start immediately. But as Sanno refused to bring out the jinrikisha, it was not possible to carry out his intention. Then the Honorable Percival, who was not used to being crossed, lost his temper, and the entire household came out to see him do it. Sanno and the proprietor watched him with bland and smiling faces, and the girls tucked their heads behind their sleeves and laughed immoderately at his scowls and vehement gestures.

Seeing that he was gaining nothing by argument, he stalked sullenly back to his room, where active preparations were in progress for dinner. The brazier which had been used for the tea still stood in the middle of the floor, and all around it were porcelain bowls and lacquer trays, and a wooden bucket full of steaming rice.

He took refuge on the two-foot balcony and gazed gloomily on the sprawling stream below. The Westons were probably back in Kioto by this time, and would be off again in the morning before he could possibly get there. What headway might not that presumptuous Andy Black make with Bobby Boynton in forty-eight uninterrupted hours!

His tragic reflections were interrupted by the announcement that dinner was served. Seated on the floor before a twelve-inch table, with disgust written on every feature, he drank fish-soup out of a bowl, and tasted dish after dish as it was borne in and respectfully placed before him.

"Haven't you a fork?" he asked when the chop-sticks were proffered him.

"Forku?" repeated one of the three maidens who knelt before him; then she joined the other two in a giggling chorus.

There had been moments in the Honorable Percival's life when his dignity trembled on its pedestal, but never had it swayed so perilously as when he tried to use chop-sticks for the first time under the fire of those six mischievous black eyes. It was only by maintaining his haughtiest manner that he remained master of the situation.

When bedtime came, a new difficulty arose. Sanno's prophecy that "foreign bedstead probably is not" proved true. A neat pile of quilts in the middle of the floor was offered as a substitute, and Percival, after a long argument, stretched himself on the soft heap and courted oblivion. But the Fates were against him. As if his thoughts were not sufficient to torment him, hundreds of mosquitos swarmed up from the stream below, and assailed him so viciously that at midnight he rose and called loudly for Sanno.

With Sanno came the household, all eager to know what new excitement the foreign gentleman was creating. When the trouble was explained, elaborate preparations were set on foot to remedy it. After much discussion, hooks were driven into the corners of the ceiling, and a huge net cage, the size of the room, suspended therefrom.

During this performance Percival suffered great embarrassment, owing to the fact that the pink silk underwear in which he was arrayed was an object of the liveliest interest to the ladies.

When at last he was left alone, he fell into a troubled sleep. He dreamed that the world was peopled solely by mosquitos, and he knew them all, Captain Boynton, Andy Black, Sanno, the Lady Hortense, and even Bobby herself. One by one they came and nipped him while he lay helpless, clad only in a pink suit of silken underwear.



XI

THE GYMKHANA

The experiences of his first twenty-four hours in Japan were repeated with variations three times before Percival reached Kobe. His mad desire to overtake Bobby had carried him from Kioto to Nara, where he went to the wrong hotel and missed the Weston party by fifteen minutes. From Nara he made a night journey to Ozaka, during which the small engine broke down in the middle of a rice-field, proving a sorry substitute for the wings of love.

It was with a sigh of relief that he at last boarded the Saluria and sank into his steamer-chair. At least there was one satisfaction, no one but Judson knew of his futile search, and Judson was too well trained to discuss his master's affairs. How good it was to be on board once more! He felt an almost sentimental attachment for the steamer which three weeks ago had fallen so short of what an ocean-liner ought to be. Then the Saluria was only an old Atlantic transport transferred to the Pacific to do passenger service, but now she was a veritable ship of romance, freighted with memories and dreams.

The passengers, coming aboard, seemed like old friends, and he found himself greeting each in turn with a nod that surprised them as much as it did him. At any moment now Bobby Boynton might appear, and the prospect of seeing her raised his spirits to such a height that he wondered if he would be able to play the role he had assigned himself.

He had definitely decided to be an injured, but forgiving, friend. She should be made no less aware of his wounds than of his generosity. She would doubtless recall another incident in which he had met ingratitude with noble forgiveness, and she would rush to make reparation. If there was one thing he prided himself upon it was a knowledge of women. Never but once had his judgment erred, and even then, could he but remember all his impressions, he doubtless had had moments of misgiving.

Bobby's voice sounded on the ladder, and the next moment she was tripping down the deck toward him. It was in vain that he kept his eyes on the letter in his hand, and assumed an air of complete absorption. She came straight toward him, and dropped into the chair next his own.

"Oh, but you missed it!" she said. "I never had so much fun in all my life."

He did not answer. Instead, he lifted a pair of melancholy eyes, and looked at her steadfastly.

"Oh," she said after a puzzled moment, "I forgot. We are mad, aren't we? One of us owes the other an apology."

"Which do you think it is!" he asked gently, as if appealing to her higher nature.

Bobby, with her head on one side, considered the matter. "Well," she said, "you did something I didn't like, and I did something you didn't like. Strikes me the drinks are on us both."

"The—" Percival's horrified look caused her to exclaim contritely:

"Excuse me, I'll do better next time. Come on, let's make up. Put it there and call it square!"

It was impossible to refuse the small hand that had been the cause of the trouble, but even as Percival thrilled to its clasp he realized his danger. During the course of his twenty-eight years he had always been able to prescribe a certain course for himself and follow it with reasonable certainty. Exciting moments were now occurring when he was unable to tell what his next word or move was going to be. It is quite certain that he never intended to take her hand in both of his and look at her in the way he was doing now.

"What a bunch of letters!" she said, getting possession of her hand. "You see, I have some, too. I'll read you some of mine if you'll read me some of yours. Will you?"

"Which will you have?"

"May I choose? What fun! Read me the one with the sunburst on it."

He obediently adjusted his monocle, broke the seal, and began:

"'My Dear Son:

"'I cannot, I fear, make my letter so long or so interesting as I could desire, owing to the fact that I am afflicted with a slight lumbago, but I will proceed without further preliminary to set down the few incidents of interest that have occurred since my last writing. Your brother is sorely harassed by affairs in the city, and when here he is in constant altercation with the grooms about exercising your horses. I fear you will find them sadly out of condition upon your return.'"

"I call that a darn shame!" said Bobby, sympathetically, then her hand flew to her mouth as she saw Percival's raised eyebrows.

"There I go again! You see, I've been running around with Andy Black, and nobody ever puts on airs with Andy."

Percival gave a sigh of discouragement, then resumed his reading:

"'We have had few guests at the hall since your departure until yesterday, when who should call but the Duchess of Dare!'" Percival paused, and glanced hurriedly down the page.

"Go on!" commanded Bobby.

"It won't interest you in the slightest."

"But it does. Unless there's something you don't want me to hear."

"Not at all. Where was I? Oh, yes, 'call but the Duchess of Dare! She has let her house to some friends, and has come away from London for a fortnight's rest. It was rather queer of her calling, wasn't it? She was less embarrassed than you would imagine and actually had the effrontery to mention Hortense.'"

"Who is Hortense?" asked Bobby, all curiosity.

"Her daughter."

"Well, why shouldn't her mother mention her?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Percival, in deep water; "rather bad form, perhaps."

"For a mother to mention her own child?" Then the light dawned. "Perhaps she is the one you were telling me about."

Percival hastily folded the letter and slipped it into its emblazoned envelop.

"Is she?" persisted Bobby.

"Is she what?"

"The girl you let down easy?"

"Well, really, Miss Boynton—"

"Roberta," corrected Bobby.

"Very well, Roberta. It's your time to read to me. May I choose a letter?"

"No, I'll choose one myself."

"But that isn't fair. I let you select any one you liked."

She thought it over, then somewhat reluctantly held out three envelops. It was so evident that she was trying to keep back the bulky one with the bold address that Percival instantly selected it.

"Some of it's secrets," she warned him, "and you mustn't peep."

"Of course not. But who is it from?"

"That wasn't in the game. I didn't ask you."

"You didn't need to; but go ahead."

"It's all about the ranch," said Bobby, looking over the pages and smiling to herself. "They've had an awful row with the new broncho-buster, and Hal had to punch his head for being cruel to the horses. I knew that fellow wasn't any good." She read on for a while to herself. "Says the shooting promises to be great this year. My! but I hate to miss it!"

"Whatever do you find to shoot?"

"A little of everything from teal duck to Canada goose."

"Really!" exclaimed Percival, with interest. "And do you shoot?"

"Oh, yes, some. I'm not as good as the boys. You see, I have to use Pa Joe's old No. 10 choke-bore shot-gun, when I really ought to have a 16-bore fowling-piece."

Here was a new and wholly unsuspected bond of sympathy between them. Percival would have plunged at once into a dissertation on a subject upon which he considered himself an authority had not the fluttering sheets of the letter stirred vague misgivings in his bosom.

"You aren't playing fair!" he cried. "You are telling me what is in your letter without reading it to me."

"So I am!" She looked over page after page. "Here, this will do. It says: 'I wish you could have been along last night when I hit the trail for the Lower Ranch. You know what that old road looks like in the moonlight, all deep black in the gorges, and white on the cliffs, and not a dog-gone sound but the hoof-beats of your horse and the clank of the bridle-chains. Why, when you come out in the open and the wind gets to ripping 'cross the grass-fields, and the moon gets busy with every little old blade, and there's miles of beauty stretched out far as your eye can reach, I'd back it against any sight in the world. Only last night I wasn't thinking much about the scenery. I was thinking—'" Bobby stopped short, declaring that she had a cinder in her eye.

"Can't be a cinder, out here in the bay," protested Percival.

"Well, it's whatever they have out here."

"And sha'n't I ever know what your friend was thinking?"

"He was probably thinking of his dinner," said Bobby, gazing at him reassuringly with her free eye.

After she had departed to make sure that the steamer got properly under way, he tortured himself with suspicions. What possible secrets could she have with this unknown friend, who waxed sentimental over moonlit trails and wind-swept grassfields? Had not some one told him of an unhappy love-affair? He searched his memory. Suddenly there came to him the disturbing figure of a stalwart young man on a broncho, with leather overalls, jingling spurs, a silk handkerchief knotted about his throat, and a pair of keen, humorous eyes lighting up a sun-bronzed face.

Then he smiled at his quick alarm. Hadn't she told him it was one of her foster-brothers, one of those lads whom he persisted in regarding as children? It was the most natural thing in the world that an impulsive, big-hearted creature like Bobby would be on terms of affectionate intimacy with those boys with whom she had been brought up.

He did not feel fully reassured, however, until he put the question to her flatly:

"That letter you were reading me," he said at his first opportunity—"you won't mind telling me if it is from that chap I saw at the station?"

"I don't mind telling you. But you mustn't tell the captain."

"The captain? Oh, to be sure. Doesn't fancy your friends, the Fords. I remember."

From that time on he boldly and openly entered the lists for Bobby's favor. The ten days he had allowed himself to drift with the tide of his inclination were passing with incredible swiftness, and he resorted to every means, from the subtlest strategy to the most domineering insolence, to monopolize every waking moment of her time.

She responded to all his suggestions with flattering promptness until preparations were set on foot to hold a huge gymkhana, in which everybody on board should take part. The enterprise fired her enthusiasm instantly. She was a born organizer, and the prospect of a whole day devoted to sports captivated her. The project served as a peg on which she and Percival hung their first quarrel.

"Of course I'm going into it," she exclaimed hotly, "and so are you."

"The idea!" said Percival. "I shouldn't think of it for a moment. Fancy me chasing an egg around the deck in a teaspoon, and all that sort of thing!"

"But there are lots of other contests. There's the long jump, and the tug-of-war—"

"And pinning tails on donkeys," added Percival, bitterly. "Dare say you'd like to see me doing that."

"I'd like to see you doing anything that would make you more sociable," flashed Bobby.

For the rest of the day Percival sulked in the smoking-room, raging at the time that was stolen from him, and given to the making of silly rules and the buying of trifling prizes.

On the morning of the sports he arrayed himself in one of the white creations of G. Lung Fat's, giving special attention to the accessories of his toilet. Then, with marked indifference to the games, which were the all-absorbing topic of the day, he had his chair moved to the far side of the deck, and sat there in superior isolation during the whole morning.

But even there he could not avoid hearing what was taking place; shouts of laughter, groans, and jeers over a failure, and frantic applause over a victory, were wafted to him constantly. Now and then some one hurried by with the information that Andy Black had won the quoits prize or that Andy Black had won the bottle-race. His lip curled contemptuously at sports that required a mere trickster's turn of the wrist or an animal's sense of direction. He would like to see Andy attempt a long jump or a mile race. Imagine the fat pink-and-white youth on a polo pony!

At luncheon Andy's praises were passed from lip to lip. The affair had assumed an international significance. A Scotchman, a German, a Japanese, and an American were striving for first place. The captain's patriotism ran so high that he offered to set up the handsomest dinner the Astor Hotel in Shanghai could afford if Andy came out victorious.

In vain Percival sought to hold Bobby's attention. The tapers in her eyes were lighted for Andy, and he was obliged to undergo the new and intolerable sensation of sitting in a darkened niche and watching the candles burn at an adjoining shrine.

The slightest hint of deflection in one upon whom he had bestowed his favor maddened him. He had showered upon this ungrateful girl attentions the very husks of which would have sustained several English girls he knew through a lifetime of patient waiting. He recalled their unswerving loyalty with a glow at his heart.

Ah, he thought, one must look to England for ideal womanhood. Where else was to be found that beautiful deference, that blind reliance, that unswerving loyalty—At the word "loyalty" a stabbing memory of Lady Hortense punctured his eloquence.

During the afternoon he found it impossible to escape the games. The potato and three-legged races brought the contestants to his side of the deck, and his reading was constantly interrupted by an avalanche of noisy spectators who rushed through the cross passages from one side of the boat to the other, exhibiting a perfectly ridiculous amount of excitement.

Andy, it seemed, had only one more entry to win before claiming the day's championship.

"He'll get it!" Percival overheard the captain saying gleefully to Mrs. Weston. "None of 'em are in it with America when it comes to sports."

Percival flicked the ashes from his cigar, and, carefully adjusting his tie, rose, and made his way to the judges' table.

"How many more events are there?" he asked in a superior tone.

"One," was the answer.

"How many entries?"

"Two. Mr. Black and the Scotch gentleman."

"Make it three," said Percival, as if he were ordering cocktails.

In the confusion of preparing for the last and most elaborate feature of the day, Percival's enlistment was not discovered. It was not until the contestants ranged themselves in front of the judges' table that a buzz of fresh interest and amazement swept the deck. First came the Scot, lean, wiry, and deadly determined; then came Andy, plump and pink, with his fair hair ruffled, and a laughing retort on his lips for every sally that was sent in his direction. Last came the Honorable Percival, a distinguished figure in immaculate array, wearing upon his aristocratic features a look of contemptuous superiority.

"What are the rules of the game?" he inquired, looking into space.

"There's just one rule," called Captain Boynton from the background—"Get there."

"The American motto, I believe," said Percival, quietly, and the crowd laughed.

The Scot was the first to start, and Percival watched anxiously to see the nature of the race he had entered. He saw his adversary dash forward as the signal sounded, climb over a pile of upturned chairs, scramble under a table, scale a high net fence, then disappear around the deck, only to emerge later from the mouth of a funnel-shaped tunnel, through which his contortions had been followed by shrieks of merriment.

Percival realized too late what he had let himself in for. Not for worlds would he have subjected himself to such buffoonery had he known. It was not the sport of a gentleman; it was the play of a circus clown! He watched with horrified disgust as the Scot's grimy face and tousled head emerged from the canvas cavern.

"Four minutes and five seconds," called the umpire.

Andy Black stepped confidently forward amid a burst of applause.

"The champion Roly-Poly of the Pacific," some one called.

"The Saluria's Little Sunbeam," suggested another.

Andy smiled blandly, and kissed his fingertips. The signal sounded, and he bounded off, bouncing from one obstacle to another like a rubber ball. It was only in the twenty-yard dash from the net fence to the canvas tunnel that he lost ground.

"Four minutes, two seconds," announced the umpire as Andy scrambled out on all fours.

At that moment Percival would willingly have exchanged places with the grimiest stoker in the hold. Was it possible that he had, of his own accord, placed himself in this absurd and undignified position for the sole purpose of defeating a common, commercial traveler who had dared to deflect the natural course of a certain damsel's smiles! He writhed under the ignominy of it. What if he were defeated? What if—

The signal sounded, and instinctively he hurled himself forward. As he scrambled over the upturned chairs he heard a sound that struck terror to his soul: it was the unmistakable hiss of tearing linen. The hastily made garments of G. Lung Fat had proved unequal to the strain put upon them. Percival lost his head completely when he realized that his waistcoat was split up the back from hem to collar, and that he had become an object of the wildest hilarity.

He might have fled the scene then and there, leaving Andy to enjoy his laurels undisturbed, had he not caught sight of Bobby frantically motioning him to go on. Setting his teeth grimly, he went down on all fours and scrambled under the table, then resolutely tackled that swaying, sagging network of ropes that barred his progress. Again and again he got nearly to the top, only to have his foot go through the wide bars and leave him hanging there in the most awkward and ungainly position. It seemed to him an eternity that he hung ignominiously, like a fly in a spider's web, while the crowd went wild with merriment.

Then suddenly all his fighting blood rose, and forgetting the spectators, and even forgetting Bobby, he doggedly grappled with those yielding ropes until he got a foothold, swung himself over the top, cleared the entanglement below, and made a flying dash for the yawning mouth of canvas at the far end of the deck. It was incredibly hot and suffocating inside, but he wriggled frantically forward, clawing and kicking like a crab. At last a dim light ahead spurred him to one final gallant effort.

"Four minutes!" called the umpire as the Honorable Percival Hascombe emerged, blinking and breathless, and staggered to his feet. His clothes were soiled and torn, his hair was on end, there was dust in his eyes, and dirt in his mouth.

The fickle audience went wild. The dark horse had won, and public favor immediately swung in his direction. But it was not the favor of the public that Percival sought; it was the homage of a certain rebellious maiden, who must be taught that he was the master of any situation in which he found himself.

Bobby was not slow to proffer her congratulations. She gave them with both hands, to say nothing of her eyes and her dimple.

"I pulled for you!" she whispered eagerly. "I almost prayed for you. I wouldn't have seen you beaten for the world."

As Percival, elated by her enthusiasm, stood shaking hands right and left, he felt a curious and unfamiliar warmth stealing over him. All these people whom he had looked upon until to-day as so many figureheads stalking about suddenly became human beings. He found, to his surprise, that he knew their names and they knew his. He sat on a table, swinging his feet in unison with a lot of other young feet, while he sipped lemonade from the same glass as Bobby Boynton.



As a matter of fact, the Honorable Percival Hascombe was experiencing a novel sensation. He was enjoying a sense of fellowship, to which all his life he had been a stranger.



XII

THE SONG OF THE SIREN

By the time the Saluria anchored off Shanghai, the fires in Percival's bosom had assumed the proportions of a conflagration. No sooner were they seemingly conquered by the cold stream of reason that was poured upon them than they broke forth again with fresh and alarming violence.

On the launch coming up the Hwang-pu River he took the precaution of engaging Bobby Boynton's company not only for the day on shore, but for the evening as well. With hardened effrontery he bore the young lady away in exactly the high-handed manner so bitterly condemned in Andy Black at Yokohama.

The day on shore was one he was destined never to forget. The glamour of it suffused even material old China with a roseate hue. With gracious condescension he visited gaily decked temples and many-storied pagodas, he loitered in silk and porcelain shops, and wound in and out of narrow, ill-smelling streets, even allowing Bobby to conduct him through that amazing quarter known as Pig Alley. He not only submitted to all these diversions; he demanded more. He seemed to have developed an ambition to leave no place of interest in or about Shanghai unvisited.

Tiffin-time found them at a well-known tea-house in Nanking Road—a tea-house with golden dragons climbing over its walls and long wooden signs bearing cabalistic figures swinging in the wind like so many banners. Percival secured a table on the upper balcony, where they could look down on the passing throng, and here in the intimate solitude of a foreign crowd they had their lunch.

Bobby was too excited to eat; she hung over the balcony, exclaiming at every new sight and sound, and appealing to Percival constantly for enlightenment. Fortunately he had spent part of the previous day poring over a Shanghai guide-book, so he was able to meet her inquiries with the most amazing satisfaction.

"I don't see how any one human being can know as much as you do!" she exclaimed, with a look that Buddha might have envied.

"Even I make mistakes occasionally," said Percival, modestly. "Can't always be right, you know."

"But you are," she persisted; "you are always abominably right, and I am always wrong."

"Adorably wrong," amended Percival, assisting with the tea-things.

"Two, three, four?" she asked, holding up the sugar-tongs.

"Doesn't matter so long as I have you to look at."

Now, when an Englishman ceases to be particular about the amount of sugar in his tea, you may know he is very far gone indeed. By the time he had drained three cups of the jasmine-scented beverage and basked in the brilliance of Bobby's smiles through the smoking of two cigars, he was feeling decidedly heady.

"If we are going to the races, we really must start," declared Bobby when she found the situation getting difficult.

"What's the use of going anywhere?" asked Percival, blowing one ring of smoke through another.

"Why, we are seeing the sights of Shanghai. You said you were crazy about China."

"So I am. You are quite determined on the races?"

"Quite," said Bobby.

Their way to the track lay along the famous Bubbling Well Road, and as they bowled along in a somewhat imposing victoria, with a couple of liveried Chinamen on the box, Bobby sat bolt upright, her cheeks flushed, and her eager eyes drinking in the sights.

It was a scene sufficiently gay to hold the interest of a much more sophisticated person than the untraveled young lady from Wyoming. The whole of society, it appeared, was on route to the races. The road was thronged with smart traps full of brilliantly dressed people of every nationality. There were gay parties from the various legations, French, Russian, Japanese, German, English, American. In and out among the whirling wheels of the foreigners poured the unending procession of native life, unperturbed, unconcerned. A Chinese lady in black satin trousers and gorgeous embroidered coat, wearing a magnificent head-dress of jade and pearls, rode side by side with a coolie who trundled a wheelbarrow which carried his wife on one side and his week's provisions on the other. Water-carriers, street vendors, jinrikisha-runners, women with bound feet, children on foot, and children strapped on the backs of their mothers, crossed and recrossed, surged in and out.

But the Honorable Percival concerned himself little with these petty details. To him China was only a pleasing background for Miss Roberta Boynton; he saw no further than her eager, smiling eyes, and heard nothing more distant than the ripple of her laughter.

At the races they found an absorbing bond of interest. The love of horse-flesh was ingrained in both, and the merits of the various ponies provoked endless discussion. Lights were beginning to twinkle on the bund when they drove back to the hotel.

"Where shall we go to-night!" asked Percival, as eager at the end of this eight hours' tete-a-tete as he had been at the start.

"To the ball, of course," said Bobby. "The hotel is giving it in honor of the Saluria."

"Heavens! what a bore! Can't we dodge it?"

"You can if you want to. Andy'll take me. He's just waiting to see if you renig."

"Renig?" repeated Percival.

"Yes," said Bobby—"fluke, back out; you know what I mean."

That settled it with Percival. Five minutes before the hour appointed he was waiting impatiently in one of the small reception-rooms to conduct Miss Boynton to that most abhorred of all functions, a public ball. What possible pleasure he was going to get out of standing against the wall and watching her dance with other men he could not conceive. He assured himself that he was acting like a fool, and that if he kept on at the pace he was going, Heaven only knew what folly he might commit in the four days that must pass before he reached Hong-Kong.

Hong-Kong! The word had but one association for him. It was the home of his eldest and most conservative sister, a lady of uncompromising social standards, who recognized only two circles of society, the one over which her mother presided in London, and the smaller one over which she reigned as the wife of the British diplomatic official in the land of her adoption.

At the mere thought of presenting Bobby to this paragon of social perfection, Percival shuddered. He could imagine Sister Cordelia's pitiless survey of the girl through her lorgnette, the lifting of her brows over some mortal sin against taste or some deadly transgression in her manner of speech. Of course, he assured himself it would never do; the idea of bringing them together was wholly preposterous. And yet—

A Chinese youth, with a handful of trinkets, slipped into the room, and furtively proffered his wares.

"Very good, number-one jade-stone. Make missy velly plitty. Can buy?"

Percival motioned him away, only to have him return.

"Jade-stone velly nice! Plitty young missy wanchee jade-stone."

"Did she say she wanted it?" demanded Percival, with sudden interest.

The boy grinned. "Oh, yes. Wanchee heap! No have got fifty dollar'. Master have got. Wanchee buy?"

Percival tossed him the money and lay the pendant on the table. Then he resumed his pacing and his disturbed meditations. If he could only keep himself firmly in hand during those next four days, all would be well. Once safely anchored in the harbor of his sister's eminently proper English circle, the song of the siren would doubtless fade away, and he would thank Heaven fervently for his miraculous escape. Meanwhile he listened with increasing impatience for the first flutter of the siren's wings,

"Wanchee Manchu coatt?" whispered an insidious voice at his elbow, and, looking down, he saw the enterprising lad with a pile of gorgeous silks over his arm and cupidity writ large in his narrow eyes.

"No, no; go away!" commanded Percival.

"Velly fine dragon coat. Him all same b'long mandarin. How much?"

Percival turned away, but at every step was presented with another garment for inspection. Despite himself, his artistic eye was caught and held by the beauty of the fabrics.

"How much?" he asked, picking up a marvelous affair of silver and gray, lined with the faintest of shell pinks. It was the exact tone and sheen to set Bobby's beauty off to the greatest advantage. The argument over the price was short and fierce, and Percival laid the coat beside the pendant on the table.

He promised himself to offset the effect of these gifts by a more detached and impersonal manner than he had shown Bobby during the day. So far, he congratulated himself, he had given her no occasion for false hopes. On the contrary, he had gone out of his way on several occasions to express his bitter disapproval of international marriages. When the hour came for them to part, his heart might be mortally wounded, but his conscience, save for a few scratches, would be uninjured.

A quick step in the corridor made him look up. Standing in the doorway was a vision of girlish beauty that had the acrobatic effect of sending his blood into his head and his heart into his eyes. She wore the diaphanous gown of white that he liked best, her hair was coiled at the exact angle he had prescribed, and at her belt were the orchids he had sent up half an hour before. No rhinestones in her hair, no gold beads on her slippers, nothing to mar the simplicity that her all too vivid beauty required. Percival's eyes appraised her at her full value. Even Sister Cordelia would have been propitiated by the sight.

"What's this lovely thing?" cried Bobby, pouncing upon the coat.

"Something I bought to be rid of a troublesome lad. Don't know what I shall do with it, exactly."

"Take it to your sister, of course,"

"She probably has heaps of them."

Bobby slipped her round, bare arms into the loose sleeves, and surveyed herself in the long mirror.

"Isn't that the prettiest thing you ever saw?" she asked, glancing at him over her shoulder.



"It is," said Percival, emphatically. His judgment about the becomingness of the color had, us usual, been unerring.

"I should be no end grateful," he said, "if you'd take it off my hands. My trunks are fearfully stuffed now."

"But I haven't any money," said Bobby, with characteristic frankness; "besides, we don't need things like that in Cheyenne."

"Silly girl! Do you think I have turned merchant, and have got wares for sale? The coat is for you."

Bobby gave a cry of delight, then she looked up dubiously.

"But is it all right for me to take a present like this? I never had anything so big given me—yes, I did, too!" She laughed. "A fellow from Medicine Bow sent me a barrel of mixed fruit once, with nuts and raisins in between, and ten pounds of candy on top!"

"Then why scruple at my gift?"

Her brow clouded. "But you said girls oughtn't to take things from men they weren't engaged to. You remember that day on deck you got me to give back Andy's scarf-pin?"

Percival cleared his throat.

"Quite a different matter," he said; "now, between you and me—"

Bobby shook her head as she took off the coat.

"No, I guess not. I want it so bad I can taste it, but I think you'd better keep it for somebody in the family."

Percival slipped the jade pendant into his waistcoat pocket, and tossed the coat on a chair.

"As you like," he said. "Shall we go to the ball-room?"

In his secret soul he was inordinately gratified. Of course she should not have accepted the coat, and he should not have tempted her. She had done exactly right in firmly adhering to his former instructions. Altogether she was a remarkable little person indeed.

The moment they appeared in the ballroom she was confiscated, and he had a miserable quarter of an hour watching her whirl from one masculine arm to another. For the first time dancing struck him as pernicious. He declared that the clergy had something on its side when it denounced the amusement as evil. He doubted gravely if he should ever permit a wife of his to dance.

"Mr. Hascombe, aren't you going to ask me to dance?" It was Bobby who had stopped before him, flushed and breathless.

"I don't dance at public balls," he said disapprovingly.

"Why not?" asked Bobby, in surprise.

"Hardly the thing. A person in my position, you know—"

"You mean because of the Honorable? How stupid! Let's pretend you aren't one just for to-night!"

"But I don't dance these dances, you see."

"That doesn't matter; I'll teach you."

"Really, now, I can't make a spectacle of myself."

"Nobody wants you to. We'll practise out here in the loggia. Come ahead!"

He was seized by two small, determined hands and drawn this way and that, apparently without the slightest method.

"But I haven't the vaguest idea what to do with my feet," he protested helplessly.

"Don't do anything with them; let them do something with you. Shut your eyes and listen to the music; let it get into your bones, and the first thing you know you will be doing it."

With British solemnity Percival closed his eyes and tried to feel the music. Suddenly he was aware that he was moving in rhythm to the insistent beat of the drum.

"That's it!" cried Bobby, excitedly. "You are doing the Grape-Vine; let yourself go. That's it!"

So intent was he upon keeping out of time instead of in it, that he was guided from the loggia into the ball-room before he knew it. His awakening came when a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder. He stopped indignantly. The ship's doctor had not only arrested the development of his new-found talent, but was actually dancing off with his partner!

"Most unwarrantable impertinence!" he stormed to the Scotchman, whom he joined at the door. "Clapped me on the shoulder quite as if I had been under suspicion for felony. Almost expected to hear him say, 'My man, you're wanted.' I shall demand satisfaction of the cub the instant the dance is over."

The Scotchman laughed. "He meant ye no harm. It's a trick they have in the States of changing partners. Watch the game; ye'll see."

"And I can take any man's partner away by simply laying my hand on his shoulder?"

This changed the complexion of things considerably. The Honorable Percival spent the remainder of the evening laying his hand upon the shoulder of whosoever claimed Bobby for a dance.

It was remarkable with what facility he acquired the new steps. He knew that he had a good figure and that he carried it with distinction. The admiring glances that followed his entrance into any public assembly made him pleasantly aware of the fact. To-night, however, if any of his thoughts turned upon himself, they were but stragglers from the main army that marched in solid file under Bobby's banner.

During the intervals when he could not dance with her he retired to the loggia, and thought about her. She was not only the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, but the most adorably responsive. He likened her poetically to an AEolian harp and himself to the wind.

No one, not even his fond mother, had accepted him so implicitly at his own valuation as Bobby. Other women frequently insisted upon their own interpretations. He looked upon this as a form of disloyalty. Lady Hortense had once decried his taste for Tennyson; that, and her persistent use of a perfume which he disliked had been symbolic to him of a difference in temperament. Bobby had no predilections for perfumes or poets. She blindly accepted his judgment of all things, and if she sometimes failed to conform to his wishes, it was through forgetfulness and not opposition. He gloried in her plasticity; after all, was it not among the chief of feminine virtues?

While he paced the loggia and thus recounted her charms, he became increasingly intolerant of the fact that his AEolian harp was being swept by various winds. He thirsted for a complete monopoly of her smiles, of all her glances, grave and gay, of the thousand and one little looks and gestures that he had quite unwarrantably come to look upon as his own.

After all, why should he consider his family before himself? Why should he ever go back to England at all? It was the most daring thought he had ever had, and for a moment it staggered him. Lines from "Locksley Hall" began ringing in his ears:

"... Oh for some retreat Deep in yonder shining-Orient when; my life began to heat: Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shady, and palms in clusters, Knots of Paradise. There the passions, cramp'd no longer, shall have scope and breathing space; I will take some savage woman—"

Of course, he told himself, Bobby wasn't exactly a savage woman; but then again she was, you know, in a way. She was from the point of view of Sister Cordelia. But why consult Sister Cordelia at all? Why not seek some "blossomed bower in dark purple spheres of sea"? Not in China; it was too beastly smelly. Not in Japan; mosquitos. Not in America; never! It should be some South Sea Island, where they would dwell, "the world forgetting, and by the world forgot."

Once an Englishman slips the leash of his sentiment and quotes even a line of poetry, it carries him far afield. In this case it led Percival a headlong chase over walls of tradition and barriers of pride. He begrudged every moment that must elapse before he had Bobby to himself, and told her of his great decision.

"But isn't it too late to be taking a walk?" she protested when the last dance was over, and he was urging a turn on the bund.

"Just a breath of fresh air. Won't take five minutes. Where's your wrap?"

"I haven't any but my steamer-coat. I don't suppose you could stand that."

"You will wear the Manchu coat," said Percival, with tender authority; "there's every reason why you should."



XIII

PERCIVAL PROCRASTINATES

The little park that stretched between the bund and the water-front way deserted save for a few isolated couples who had strolled out from the hotel to cool off after the heat of the ball-room. Percival and Bobby found a vine-clad summer-house where they could watch the tall ships riding at anchor in the bay, their riding-lights swaying amid the more stationary stars. Closer to the water were the bobbing lights of the sleeping junks, while behind them twinkled the myriad lights of that vast native city the hem of whose garment they were merely touching.

The setting was all that Percival's fastidious taste could desire, but now that he had "the time and the place and the loved one all together," he found an epicure's delight in lingering over his rapture. This hour had a flavor, a bouquet, that no other hour would ever contain, and he preferred to sip it deliriously moment by moment. He coaxed her to talk at length about himself, to put into her own words the impressions he had made upon her mentally, morally, and physically. He never tired of beholding in the mirror of her mind the very images he had placed before it.

"You are a perfect little wizard!" he exclaimed in ecstasy. "You read me like a book. Quite sure you aren't cold!"

"No," said Bobby; "but I'm getting awfully sleepy."

His pride took instant alarm. After all, it was not the hour to press his suit. He rose, and tenderly drew the shining folds of her wrap about her.

"I shall take you in. Can't allow you to lose your roses, you know. To-morrow I must take better care of you."

Bobby gave a sleepy little laugh.

"What is it!" he asked.

"I was just thinking how mad we are making the captain. He wouldn't speak to me all through dinner."

"I shall have a word to say to the captain to-morrow that will quite change his attitude."

"What sort of a word?"

"Can't you guess?"

Before Bobby could answer, their attention was arrested by angry shouts in the street behind them. A drunken sailor, evidently from an English gunboat, was in fierce altercation with his jinrikisha-man, and was announcing to the world, in language compounded of all the oaths in his vocabulary, that he wished to be condemned to Hades if any more pumpkin-headed, pig-tailed Chinks got another bob out of his pocket.

Percival was for hurrying his precious charge past the belligerents and into the hotel, but Bobby insisted upon seeing the end of it.

"That sailor is fixing to get into trouble," she cried. "He doesn't know what he is doing or saying."

"I dare say he'll manage very well," said Percival, urging her on.

"But he isn't managing, He's making the coolie furious. Don't let him hit at him like that! See, he's caught hold of his queue!"

The patient Chinaman had received the supreme insult, and in a second he had flashed a short knife from his belt, and was lunging at the stupid, upturned face of the half-recumbent sailor.

Percival sprang forward and seized the descending arm. He was not quick enough to arrest the force of the blow, but he succeeded in deflecting its course, and the blade, which would have given the sailor a decent burial at sea, sharply grazed Percival's wrist, and buried itself in the side of the jinrikisha.

It was all so quickly done that by the time a crowd collected and the big Sikh policeman arrived in his yellow clothes and huge striped turban Percival had got Bobby safely into the hotel lobby. He was exasperated beyond measure that this very evening, of all, should have ended in his participation in a vulgar street brawl. So far he had succeeded in keeping Bobby from knowing that he was wounded, but the beastly scratch was bleeding furiously, and he had to keep his hand behind, him to prevent her from seeing it.

They hurried through the empty lobby and down the long corridor that led to the elevator. Bobby was full of excitement over the recent adventure and the part Percival had played in it.

"My, but you were quick!" she said as they went up on the elevator. "I had just time to shut my eyes and open them again, and it was all over."

"Nothing to speak of," said Percival, twisting his handkerchief tighter around his throbbing wrist.

"But you don't mind my being proud of you, do you?" asked Bobby as the elevator stopped at his floor. "When I see a man show courage like that, I just feel as if—as if I'd like to squeeze him."

Percival's left hand shot out and caught hers to his lips.

"Why, Mr. Hascombe!" she cried "What's the matter with your arm? No, I mean the other one."

"A mere scratch."

"But your sleeve's cut, and the handkerchief is all blood-stained. Why didn't you tell me you were hurt?"

"I assure you it is nothing. Quite all right in the morning. Breakfast with you at nine. Happy dreams!"

Bobby was not to be so easily put off. She insisted upon following him out of the elevator and inspecting the wound,

"Why, it's dreadful!" she cried. "And it must have been bleeding like this for five minutes! Quick! Where's your room?"

"But really, my dear girl, I can't allow this. You must get back into the lift straight away and go up to your room."

"I sha'n't do anything of the sort until you get Judson or a doctor or somebody."

Percival would have carried his point but for a certain dizziness that had come over him. He put out a hand to steady himself.