o the door, which the girl as cautiously opened
wider. Then, in a second, she was out in the dusky passageway, beside her
smiling guide.

XX

THE DOOR WITH THE RED LABEL

"Mellican gell see ole Chineseman smokee opum pipe?" the girl asked.

"Why, you speak English!" exclaimed Angela, forgetting in her surprise
that here was only a very little of China set in the midst of a great deal
of America.

"I go school one time," said the girl. "Dis times I fo'get sometings. You
come Chinese gell. You velly pletty."

Angela laughed, and went, guilty but excited. This was too good an
adventure to miss. Schermerhorn must know the inhabitants and habits of
this place, and he would guess what had become of her, when they found her
gone. "So are you very pretty," she smiled.

"Yes," replied the girl, in her little metallic voice. "I like you. You
like me. You give one dollah; I take you see Chinese man smokes mo' 'n all
oddeh mens. He velly old--knows ebelyting."

"Oh, I am to pay you a dollar! So it isn't all for love of my _beaux
yeux_," murmured Angela. But she gave the sum, glad that she had spent
most of her money in buying jade and ivory, which now encumbered Nick's
pockets. The girl took first her dollar and next her gloved hand. Then,
opening one of the unpainted doors in the long, dusky passage, she led
her companion into a dark cellar.

"Where are you taking me?" Angela inquired, thinking with sudden longing
of the lighted room of the musician, where Nick was perhaps beginning to
look for her.

"Next-do'h house," replied the girl calmly; and Angela would have been
ashamed to draw back, even had curiosity and a faint excitement not
compelled her to go on. At one end of the cellar was a wooden stairway,
very steep, going both up and down. She and her conductor went down one
flight, then along a short passage, then up some steps, then down a few
more. Angela was enjoying the experience, but her joy was spiced with
fear.

The two girls were in a very strange house, much stranger, Angela thought,
than the one they had left. It was a rabbit-warren of tiny, boxlike rooms,
threaded with narrow, labyrinthine passages, just wide enough for two slim
persons to pass side by side. The rough wooden walls were neither painted
nor stained, and the knot-holes were stuffed with rags. Here and there a
rude door was open, hanging crookedly on its hinges, while the occupant
talked with a friend outside, or prepared for an e