od some little tables.

To the farthest of these, under the rush-covered windows, we made our
way and sat down on some very ordinary American chairs, a hideous note
in the quaint surrounding, introduced as a concession, no doubt, to
Western taste.

"I rather like this, Morley," I said as I took my seat and looked
round.

"Thought you would," he returned, and pressed his hand on a tiny
bronze figure standing on the table. At the touch of his finger the
head of the figure disappeared between its shoulders, and then sprung
up again, producing a harsh clanging sound of a gong.

Hardly a moment later the red curtains that hung over the doorway
parted, and a figure came into the room.

Such a sweet figure, the very spirit of poetic girlhood seemed
incarnate before us.

In appearance she was a Chinese maiden of seventeen or eighteen years;
seventeen or eighteen according to our standard of looks, doubtless
she was in reality younger.

The face was wonderfully beautiful, a very rounded oval and of the
most perfect creamy tint, the nose, straight and fine, was rather
long, the upper lip short, and the mouth very small, soft, and
full-lipped. The eyes inclined a little to the Chinese shape, but were
large, wide, and well-opened and brimming to the lids with
extraordinary light and fire; delicately narrow black eyebrows arched
above on the low satiny forehead, from which was brushed upwards a
mass of shining black hair piled on the top of the small head and
apparently secured there by two weighty gold pins thrust through from
side to side.

The last touch of beauty, if any were needed, was added by the
earrings of turquoise-blue stone that swung against the ivory-tinted
softness of the full young throat.

Those blue stones against the creamy neck! For years afterwards how I
could see them again in the darkness that lies behind closed lids! How
often I was back in the crimson darkness of the tiny chamber with the
sea song of the Alaskan waves coming through the painted rushes above
my head!

She was very simply dressed, yet so fitly to her own beauty.

A straight pale blue jacket covered her shoulders and opened on the
breast over a white muslin vest. Her skirts hung like the full
trousers of Persian women, and were a deep yellow in colour. Her feet
were bare, and shone white on the red floor.

"How do you do, Suzee?" said Morley.

"How do you do, Mister Morlee," returned the girl lightly, smiling and
showing pre