e
complicated machinery of civilization through which they had come,
at length to land on the beach of her island. She knew now the
supreme human energy which sent men to hell or carried them to
their earthly heights. Selfishness.

Supposing she saw the young man at dinner that night, emptying his
bottle? She could not go to him, sit down and draw the sordid
pictures she had seen so often. In her case the barrier was not
selfishness but the perception that her interest would be
misinterpreted, naturally. What right had a young woman to possess
the scarring and intimate knowledge of that dreg of human society,
the beachcomber?

CHAPTER II

Ah Cum lived at No. 6 Chiu Ping le, Chiu Yam Street. He was a
Canton guide, highly educated, having been graduated from Yale
University. If he took a fancy to you, he invited you to the house
for tea, bitter and yellow and served in little cups without
handles. If you knew anything about Canton ware, you were, as like
as not, sorely tempted to stuff a teacup into your pocket.

He was tall, slender, and suave. He spoke English with astonishing
facility and with a purity which often embarrassed his tourists. He
made his headquarters at the Victoria on the Sha-mien, and
generally met the Hong-Kong packet in the morning. You left
Hong-Kong at night, by way of the Pearl River, and arrived in Canton
the next morning. Ah Cum presented his black-bordered card to such
individuals as seemed likely to require his services.

This morning his entourage (as he jestingly called it) consisted of
the girl, two spinsters (Prudence and Angelina Jedson), prim and
doubtful of the world, and the young man who appeared to be
considerably the worse for the alcohol he had consumed.

In the beginning Ah Cum would run his glance speculatively over the
assortment and select that individual who promised to be the most
companionable. He was a philosopher. Usually his charges bored him
with their interrogative chatter, for he knew that his information
more often than not went into one ear and out of the other. To-day
he selected the girl, and gave her the lead-chair. He motioned the
young man to the rear chair, because at that hour the youth
appeared to be a quantity close to zero. Being a Chinaman in blood
and instinct, he despised all spinsters; they were parasites. A
woman was born to have children, particularly male children.

Half a day had turned the corner of the hours; and Ah Cum admitted
th