d to be assigned to the role of an old traveller. Still, it
was true about men. Seldom they molested a woman who appeared to
know where she was going and who kept her glance resolutely to the
fore.

Said Prudence, with commendable human kindness: "My sister and I
are going on to Shanghai and Peking. If you are going that way, why
not join us."

The girl's blood ran warmly for a minute. "That is very kind of
you, but I am on my way to America. Up to dinner yesterday I did
not expect to come to Canton. I was the last on board. Wasn't the
river beautiful under the moonlight?"

"We did not leave our cabins. Did you bring any luggage?"

"All I own. In this part of the world it is wise never to be
separated from your luggage."

The girl fished into the bottle for an olive. How clever she was,
to fool everybody so easily! Not yet had any one suspected the
truth: that she was, in a certain worldly sense, only four weeks
old, that her every act had been written down on paper beforehand,
and that her success lay in rigidly observing the rules which she
herself had drafted to govern her conduct.

She finished the olive and looked up. Directly in range stood the
strange young man, although he was at the far side of the loft. He
was leaning against a window frame, his hat in his hand. She noted
the dank hair on his forehead, the sweat of revolting nature. What
a pity! But why?

There was no way over this puzzle, nor under it, nor around it:
that men should drink, knowing the inevitable payment. This young
man did not drink because he sought the false happiness that lured
men to the bottle. To her mind, recalling the picture of him the
night before, there had been something tragic in the grim silent
manner of his tippling. Peg after peg had gone down his blistered
throat, but never had a smile touched his lips, never had his gaze
roved inquisitively. Apparently he had projected beyond his table
some hypnotic thought, for it had held him all through the dining
hour.

Evidently he was gazing at the dull red roofs of the city: but was
he registering what he saw? Never glance sideways at man, the old
Kanaka woman had said. Yes, yes; that was all very well in ordinary
cases; but yonder was a soul in travail, if ever she had seen one.
Here was not the individual against whom she had been warned. He
had not addressed to her even the most ordinary courtesy of fellow
travellers; she doubted that he was even aware of her existence.