"Give me your key!" he heard Bobby saying, and the next instant his door was flung open, the lights were switched on, and he was staggering blindly toward the couch at the foot of the bed. Then there was a furious ringing of bells, a long wait, followed by the appearance of a sleepy Chinese night watchman.

"Gentleman hurt!" cried Bobby. "Get a doctor! Send somebody up here quick! Do you understand?"

"Me savvy," said the Chinaman, calmly. "Doctor no belong Astor Hotel. All same belong Oliental Hotel."

"I don't care where he belongs," Bobby cried impatiently. "Get him over the telephone. And send somebody up from the office, do you understand?"

"Oh, yes, me savvy," he said, with the imperturbability of his race.

Percival heard the man's footsteps dying in the distance, and he made a mighty effort to rouse himself.

"Silly of me to behave like this. Quite all right now, thanks. You must run away before any one comes."

"Why?" demanded Bobby.

"Looks rather queer your being here like this at midnight, you know. Wouldn't compromise you for the world."

Bobby was standing at his dressing-table searching for something, and she wheeled upon him indignantly.

"This is no time to be thinking about looks. You lie down and stop talking. Hold your arm up straight, like that. Keep it that way until I come."

He did as she told him, grasping his right wrist in his left hand; but the bright-red blood continued to spurt through his fingers, showing no signs of abating.

"If I could only find a string!" cried Bobby, tossing the contents of his bag this way and that. "Here's the strap on your toilet-case; perhaps it'll do."

She knelt beside the couch, and, ripping his sleeve to the elbow, hastily wrapped the leather thong twice about his forearm and slipped the strap into the buckle.

"I've got to hurt you," she said resolutely, pulling with nervous strength.

"It's most awfully good of you," murmured Percival, wearily, setting his teeth and closing his eyes. Despite the pain, the drowsiness was getting the better of him. He felt himself sinking through space, away from the world, from himself, and, worst of all, from the tender, reassuring voice that kept whispering words of comfort in his ear.

From time to time he was aware of bellboys coming and going, and of apparently futile inquiries for Judson, for the doctor, for Mrs. Weston, for the captain. Then for a long time he was aware of nothing whatever.

A sudden sharp pain in his arm roused him, and he opened his eyes. Bobby still knelt on the floor beside him, unflinchingly holding the strap in place.

"I won't have this!" he cried, struggling to sit up. "Your lips are trembling. It's making you ill."

She laid her free hand on his shoulder.

"Please lie still! They'll be here in a minute. I thought I heard the elevator. It won't be much longer."

There was the sound of hurrying feet in the hall, and the next instant a quick rap at the door. Bobby looked up with great relief as a burly English physician bustled into the room.

"How long have you had the tourniquet on, Madam?" he asked, stripping off his gloves and falling to work.

"The what?" said Bobby.

"The strap on his arm?"

"Oh, since a quarter past twelve." She got up from her knees stiffly, and shook out the shining folds of the Manchu coat. "It was the only thing I could think of; it's what the boys do back home for a rattlesnake bite."

The doctor's glance expressed complete and unqualified approval, but whether it was for her course of action or her very lovely and disturbed appearance it would be hard to say. As she slipped out of the room he turned to Percival.

"It's a severed artery, sir; no special harm done except the loss of blood. A few days' rest—"

"But I am sailing in the morning," murmured Percival. "Must patch me up by that time."

"We shall see. You don't seem to realize that you stood an excellent chance of remaining permanently in Shanghai."

"You mean?"

"I mean that you owe your life to that plucky little wife of yours."

Percival's heart leaped at the word. "She's not my wife, Doctor," he said, smiling feebly, "not yet."



XIV

NEPTUNE TAKES A HAND

The evolution of a hero is seldom a gradual process; he usually springs into public favor suddenly and dramatically. Not so with the Honorable Percival. He had to scramble ignominiously on all fours through a canvas tunnel, he had to brave the smiles of the on-lookers while he learned new steps on the ball-room floor, he had to participate in a street fight and have an artery severed before he was accorded the honor of a pedestal.

Bobby's graphic account of his defense of the drunken sailor, together with his own vigorous disavowal of any heroism in the affair, won for him a halo. After months of tedious anchorage in the dull harbor of seclusion, he found himself once more afloat on a sea of approval, tasting again the sweet savor of adulation, and spreading his sails to catch each passing breath of admiration.

Reclining in his deck-chair, with his arm in a sling and a becoming pallor suffusing his classic features, he became an object of the greatest solicitude to his fellow-passengers. The fluttering attentions he received warmed him into geniality, and in return he dispensed regal favors. He allowed Mrs. Weston to consult him concerning her presentation at court the following spring, he let Andy Black arrange his tie, and permitted Elise Weston to cut the leaves of his magazine. He graciously submitted to endless inquiries concerning his hourly progress, and even went so far as to accept two cream peppermints from the old missionary, who had acquired a new box.

The only drawback to this feast of brotherly love lay in the fact that he could not obtain the tete-a-tete he so earnestly desired with Bobby Boynton. She was always with him, to be sure, but so was everybody else, especially Mrs. Weston, who had been officially appointed to stand guard over the situation.

The captain had been stung to active measure by a chance remark of Andy Black's when they were alone at breakfast.

"Accept my condolences," that youth had lugubriously remarked. "You have missed the chance of your young life."

"How's that?" asked the captain.

"By not getting me for a son-in-law. Miss Bobby broke the news to me at the dance last night."

"Did she give you a reason?" asked the captain, arresting his cup in mid-air.

"I didn't need one. I've been rooming with it ever since we left Honolulu."

"She didn't say it was—"

"Oh, she as good as told me. Same old chestnut I've been handed out all my life. Said she cared for somebody else, but that she'd never forget me. I can't see much satisfaction in occupying a pigeon-hole in a girl's heart when, another fellow's got the key to it."

The captain, was concerned with something far more serious than Andy's matrimonial failures.

"What makes you think it's Hascombe?" he asked.

"What makes everybody think so?" asked Andy. "What makes him think so himself?"

The captain lost no time in finding Mrs. Weston, and laying the case before her.

"He's got to be headed off," he said anxiously. "It 's getting serious."

"It certainly looks so after yesterday and last night. But I can't for the life of me see why you oppose it. He's really a tremendous catch, and it's no wonder Bobby's head is turned. We are all a bit daft over him since he condescended to notice us."

"Suffering Moses!" exploded the captain. "Let any fool come along and shed a few drops of blood, then kiss his hand to the grand stand, and he's got the women at his feet! I thought Bobby had more sense than to cotton to that gilded rooster. I've a good mind to lock her up in her stateroom until we reach Hong-Kong."

Mrs. Weston shook her head and smiled.

"You can't manage her that way. She is the sweetest thing that ever was, but she is the kind of girl that can't be forced."

"Well, she shall be!" cried the captain, with savage determination. "I headed her off once, and I'll do it again. I tell you, I'd rather see her dead than married to an Englishman."

"Why, Captain Boynton!"

"I would. It's the Lord's truth. Her mother before her got caught by just such a high-headed British fool. She was welcome to him, and he to her, though Heaven knows she paid for it. If I thought my girl was going the same way—"

His square jaw quivered suddenly, and he turned away abruptly.

Mrs. Weston was wise enough to keep silent until he had mastered himself, then she said kindly:

"I don't wonder you feel as you do. You leave the matter to me, and I'll do my best to keep things in abeyance until we reach Hong-Kong. Once they are separated, the danger is practically over."

It is doubtful, however, whether the combined efforts of the captain, Mrs. Weston, and even Percival himself could have kept things in statu quo had a timely typhoon not arrived and taken things into its own hands. It was about four in the afternoon that the sky darkened and the bright blue water turned to gray. The wind shifted and came on to blow dead ahead.

"What a queer light there is on everything!" cried Mrs. Weston, who was dutifully stationed between Bobby and Percival, doing sentry duty. "I wonder if it is going to blow up a storm."

"I hope so," said Bobby. "I love for things to happen."

Percival glanced despairingly at Mrs. Weston, who was beginning on a fresh ball of yarn. If she continued to sit there and knit the rest of her life, nothing ever would happen.

"I ought to close my port-hole if it's going to rain," she said. "Do you think it is?"

"Sure to," said Percival, with unusual alacrity. "Hard shower any minute."

Mrs. Weston rose reluctantly.

"Don't you think you'd better come down, too, Bobby, and close yours?"

"Mine's closed, thanks. I'll take your place and hold Mr. Hascombe's tea-cup."

Now, when a person with outrageously blue eyes is leaning on the arm of your steamer-chair, steadying your saucer for you, and the wind has blown everybody else off the deck except a bow-legged Chinese steward who is absorbed in tying things down, it does look as if Fate meant to be propitious.

Percival put his cup in his saucer and let his fingers touch the small hand that held it.



"It's quite worth while," he said, "getting a jab in the wrist, to have you looking after me like this. I wonder if you realize that you saved my life last night?"

"I bet I know what this is leading up to," cried Bobby, accusingly.

"What?" asked Percival, catching his lip between his teeth and looking at her with devouring eyes.

"A medal!"

"Much more serious. As a matter of fact, the truth is, I've been trying to get a minute alone with you all day. There's something I want—"

"Oh, yes, I know. It's that Manchu coat. You want it to pack, of course. I'll get it now."

But his fingers held hers fast to the saucer.

"You stupid child! You don't understand. It's yours, everything I have is—"

"Oh, goody! Here's the rain!" cried Bobby. "Andy bet me ten pounds of candy it wouldn't come before night. Quick, let me put your cup under the chair. Don't bother about the cushions."

"But there's something I've got to say to you. You must listen to me!"

"I'll listen to anything you like in the music-room just so it isn't 'Tales from Hoffman.' Come, we'll have to hurry!"

Percival, with his passion once more arrested, strode after her furiously. He was intolerant of every moment that passed before be claimed her for his own, and unable longer to restrain his mad desire to fold her in his arms.

In the midst of these fervent anticipations he was unpleasantly aware of the increased motion of the ship. It was the first time he had felt that pitching, rolling motion since leaving the Golden Gate, and he shuddered involuntarily.

"Here's a cozy little corner all to ourselves!" cried Bobby, tossing the cushions into a nook in the music-room, and inviting him to a place beside her.

But Percival remained standing in the doorway, supporting himself with his free hand, his eyes fixed on space, and a leaden color spreading over his face.

"If you don't mind," he said slowly, "I think I'll go below. Feel the storm a bit in my head. Atmospheric pressure, you know."

"Of course you do," cried Bobby, all solicitude. "It's no wonder, after the blood you lost last night. Sit right down there until I find Judson."



XV

PERCIVAL RISES TO AN OCCASION

During the two nights and days that followed the typhoon had everything its own way. The sea bellowed with rage, and battalion after battalion of mountainous waves charged the ship, only to fall back and form again. For thirty consecutive hours the captain stayed on the bridge watching every variation in the glass, and keeping all of his Nelson features in active service. Whatever frivolities might fill his idle hours, there was no question of his attention to duty when the call came.

As for the Honorable Percival, he had ample opportunity during his long hours of solitary confinement to make a complete inventory of his varied emotions. Two things which should never be interrupted are a sneeze and a proposal. That second declaration, so ardently begun and so ruthlessly arrested, still hung in mid-air, and lying on his back in his darkened stateroom, he had ample time in which to survey it from every angle.

Never for a moment did he question the undying nature of his affection for Bobby. His emotion was too insistent and too consuming to be doubted. It was the proprieties that he questioned, and they all shook emphatic and disapproving heads. The proprieties in Grosvenor Square, to be sure, loomed rather dim through the distance; but that immediate propriety in Hong-Kong, toward whom he was speeding with every turn of the screw, towered ominously.

If only he could hold things in abeyance until after the Saluria sailed from Hong-Kong, all might be well. It was of the utmost importance that he should not present Bobby to Sister Cordelia until the die was irrevocably cast. Faults that in Miss Boynton of the Big Gully Ranch would be glaring iniquities would, in the wife of the Honorable Percival Hascombe, dwindle away to charming eccentricities.

A daring plan occurred to him. With proper strategy he might go down to see the steamer off, get left on board, have the return trip in uninterrupted bliss with Bobby, then boldly cable from America that he had met his fate and succumbed to it, and that remonstrances were useless. The scheme appealed to him the more he considered it. Cablegrams were necessarily unemotional, and by the time letters were exchanged, the proprieties would probably have decided to accept the will of Providence and try to make the best of dear Percy's strange choice of an unknown American girl.

In the meanwhile he would devote all his energies to fitting her for the honor about to be conferred upon her, For he had quite given up the idea of the "blossomed bower in dark purple spheres of sea," and had definitely decided to take her back to England as the future mistress of Hascombe Hall. All he asked was six months in which to cut and polish his priceless gem.

It was not until the evening before the Saluria was due in Hong-Kong that the sea got over its fit of temper and decided to make that last night the most beautiful one of the crossing. Everybody was down for the farewell dinner. Even those who had been invisible for two days emerged from their state-rooms like gorgeous butterflies from their cocoons. Speeches were made, toasts were drunk, and a general air of festivity prevailed.

Percival raged inwardly at the length of the dinner. The golden moments were racing by, and he was in a fever to get Bobby away to himself, he had decided on a course which he felt did credit to his power of self-control. He would permit himself the luxury of showing her that her affection for him was wholly returned, without in any way committing himself to a definite engagement. He would, in short, ask her to accept a sort of promissory note on his affections, to be presented at any time after the steamer left Hong-Kong.

It was ten o'clock before he contrived, to escape Mrs. Weston's vigilant eye and whisk Bobby off to a certain favored nook on the boat-deck just outside the captain's state-room. Here they had spent many happy evenings, notwithstanding the fact that their figures, silhouetted against the light, had never failed to provoke the captain to a profanity that was not always inaudible.

To-night, however, the captain was detained below, and they had the entire Yellow Sea to themselves as they sat on a projecting ledge and leaned their elbows comfortably on the rail.

It was an enticing night, with nothing left of the recent storm save a subtle thrill that still lingered in wind and wave. Overhead spread a canopy of luminous, subtropical stars; in undisturbed silence they gazed up at their brilliance. From below floated faint strains of music mingling with the sound of rippling: water.

"And to think it's our very last night!" murmured Bobby, her chin on her palm. "I'll never bear 'La Paloma' that I sha'n't think of this trip and of you."

Percival dared not answer. He had reached that stage when, according to the philosopher, the moonlight is a pleasing fever, the stars are letters, the flowers ciphers, and the air is coined into song. He regarded her gaze as she bent it upon the stars as the most exquisitely pensive thing he had ever behold.

"My! but there are some dandy billiard-shots up there!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Do you see that lovely carom over there beyond the Dipper?"

"I am not thinking of caroms," he said impatiently, "I am thinking of you."

"What have I done now?" she asked indignantly.

"You've made me forget that there's anything else in the whole universe but just you!"

"And now you've got to begin to remember," said Bobby, sympathetically.

He searched her face for a clue as to what was passing in her mind, but he found none.

"You are a most awfully baffling girl," he said. "Sometimes I can't determine whether you are subtle or merely ingenuous."

"I'd give it up," advised Bobby.

"But I sha'n't give it up. I sha'n't be content until I know every little corner of your mind and heart."

She stirred uneasily. From, the way he was looking at her it was evidently a good thing that his near arm was in a sling.

"You need a cigar," she said soothingly. "Get one out; I'll light it for you."

He obediently produced his cigar-case, and together they selected a cigar. She made a great point of cutting off the end, and then, when he had got it into his mouth, she struck a match and, sheltering the blaze with her scarf, held it close. The sudden intimacy of that beautiful face in the little circle of light, with the darkness all around, was quite too much for Percival. He looked straight into her eyes for one resolution-breaking second, then he blew out the match and catching her to him, passionately kissed those smiling, upturned lips.

"Mr. Hascombe!" she protested, shrinking away; but Percival had made his leap and nothing could stop him.

"You are mine!" he cried rapturously, pressing her hand again and again to his lips. "It's all quite right, my darling. Don't be frightened. We shall be married any time, anywhere you say, to-morrow, if you like, in Hong-Kong."

"But, Mr. Hascombe—"

"Not Mr. Hascombe. Percival, Percy, if you will. Fancy! Love at first sight. One glance on those desolate plains, and you were mine!"

"But I'm not. That's what I'm trying to tell you."

He looked at her fatuously. "But you will be! My little lady of the manor! My beautiful little mistress of Hascombe Hall!"

She struggled away from him, and stood at bay.

"How can you talk to me like this?" she cried, her voice trembling with indignation, "after what I told you that day in the wind-shelter?"

"In the wind-shelter?" He looked at her in bewilderment.

"Yea, about Hal Ford and the captain and all that. Why, you promised to help me, and now—"

"Hal Ford?" repeated Percival, dazed. "What has he to do with it?"

"More than anybody else in the world. He's waiting for me in Wyoming, and I'm counting the days and the hours and the minutes until I get back to him. I thought you understood, and were helping me bring the captain around."

He stood before her too stunned to speak.

Sheer amazement for the moment crowded out the pain.

"But—but don't you love me?" he stammered at last.

"Of course I don't," said Bobby, almost indignantly; "I never have loved anybody, and I never will love anybody but Hal."

Then Percival realized that it was quite possible for lightning to strike twice in the same place. He felt a sudden pain in his throat, a burning under his lids, and he sat down limply.



"I'm so sorry!" whispered Bobby, putting her arm impulsively around his heaving shoulders. "I thought we were playing a game. I thought you understood. Please forgive me, Mr. Hascombe! Please! Won't you?"

He shook off her arm and stood up. He was whiter than he had been on the night of the accident, but he managed to achieve a smile.

"Nothing whatever to forgive, I assure you. Just a bit of a bunker, you know. Silly ass I was, not to have seen it all along. May I offer my congratulations?" he added.

She took the hand that he hold out, and for a longer time than either of them knew they stood silent, looking out into the vast mystery of the night, while the throbbing strains of "La Paloma" floated up from below, mingling with the music of the rippling water.

"I guess this is good-by," said Bobby, tremulously.

Then it was that the Honorable Percival illustrated the fact that an English gentleman is often greatest in defeat.

"Not necessarily," he said gamely. "Quite possible you and your husband may come to England."

"Or you to Wyoming!" cried Bobby, brightening instantly, and turning upon him the full splendor of her eyes. "Hal and I'd just love to give you a summer on the ranch. Do you suppose it ever will be possible?"

"Oh, I dare say," said the Honorable Percival, nonchalantly adjusting his monocle.



XVI

IN PORT

The next morning the long voyage of the Saluria came to an end. The steamer docked at Hong-Kong just as the first pink streaks of dawn crept over the bay and the terraced city.

Bobby was up with the officers, and breakfasted alone with the captain.

"Can you spare me five minutes?" she asked as he was hurrying through his second cup of coffee.

"What for?"

"For a talk. I've got something to tell you."

"It'll have to wait," said the captain, gruffly. "We are landing a cargo of sugar machinery here, and I've got my hands full."

"I don't want your hands," said Bobby, quietly; "I want your ears. There's something I've just got to tell you."

"I can't listen. I'm due on the bridge now."

He escaped for the time being, but later In the morning, when the commotion of arrival was at its height, and the passengers were beginning to go ashore, he found Bobby on the bridge beside him. He fancied he saw defiance written all over her, from the crown of her white hat to the tip of her white shoes.

"Captain," she said, "It won't take a minute."

He was on the point of refusing when she laid her hand on his.

"Cut away!" he said, looking straight ahead of him. "Make it short."

"It's about Mr. Hascombe. He's—he's asked me to marry him."

The captain jerked his hand away and brought it down on the rail with a resounding blow.

"You sha'n't do it!" he thundered. "I'd see you sewed up in a bag and dropped alongside first."

"But, Captain—"

"I won't have it! There's no use arguing. The idea of a girl of mine being carried away by a condescending, conceited jack-in-the-box—"

"He isn't! He's a darling!" Bobby flashed out hotly. "It's just that you don't understand him."

"What's more, I don't want to. I've had enough of him and his kind. If I'd known you were going to run amuck of a thing like this, I'd have let you bury yourself on the ranch for the rest of your life."

"Well," agreed Bobby, carefully studying her pink palm, and weighing her words as one who is quite open to reason, "I think I could have been happy with Hal; but you thought we were both too young and that I ought to see some other men first."

"Yes, but I didn't know you were going to get your head turned by the first fool that came lording it around with a valet and a title. The Fords may be plain people, but, by Jugs! they are the sort to tie up to in a squall."

Bobby smiled broadly under the brim of her hat.

"Then you advise me to take Hal?"

"I advise you to let me send this fellow Hascombe about his business. I'll make short work of him."

Bobby slipped her arm through his, and looked up saucily.

"You needn't bother, dear," she said. "Now that it's all settled about Hal, I don't mind telling you that I refused Mr. Hascombe last night."

* * * * *

On the gangway below, the passengers were slowly filing ashore. Among the last to debark was the Honorable Percival Hascombe, followed by a fur coat, a gun-case, two pigskin bags, a hat-box, and a valet. On his face was an expression of unutterable ennui. As he reached the wharf he turned and casually surveyed the steamer. On the bridge he discerned a small alert figure, clad in white, her dark head framed by the broad brim of a Panama hat. She waved her hand and smiled, and he waved back, but he did not smile.

"Judson," said the Honorable Percival as they handed their bags to Sister Cordelia's footman, "quite unnecessary to mention any—er—any incidents of the voyage. You understand?"

"Quite so, sir," said Judson.

FINIS

* * * * *

"When Alice Hegan Rice writes a little book, lovers of whimsical fiction rejoice with open rejoicing."—Chicago Tribune.

"Mrs. Rice has been paid the compliment of being compared with Dickens. Those who appreciate her real merits will see that she is more natural, more lifelike, and more unaffectedly humorous than the author of 'Pickwick Papers.'"—Rochester Post-Express.

"There is a delicious humor in everything she writes, and it has the virtue of non-boisterousness and sobriety in tone. There is no straining for wit: everything has the merit of spontaneity and naturalness."—Philadelphia Record.

"She is one of the real humorists, for at the bottom of her humor there is a deep well of human kindness."—The Metropolitan.

See next page for complete list of Mrs. Rice's books

* * * * *

Books by Alice Hegan Rice

MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH

"A sure cure for the blues, and a gay challenge to pessimists in general."—Chicago Herald.

Price $1.00

LOVEY MARY

"For fun and pathos, for crisp wit and serene philosophy, and for the charm that holds the reader spellbound, 'Lovey Mary' is as notable as 'Mrs. Wiggs.'"—The Christian Intelligencer.

Price $1.00

MR. OPP

"He is a figure that might hang without insidious comparison in George Eliot's own immortal character portrait gallery."—New York Sun. Price $1.00

A ROMANCE OF BILLY-GOAT HILL

"The love story has the fragrance of a wild rose, and every character in the book is worth knowing."—Chicago Record-Herald.

Price $1.25 net, postage 10 cents

SANDY

Sandy is a lovable Irish waif, and his story overflows with sunshine and humor.

Price $1.00

CAPTAIN JUNE

A happy story of a dear little American lad who has all kinds of interesting and unusual experiences in Japan.

Price $1.00

At all booksellers. Published by THE CENTURY CO.

THE END