, smiled familiarly and lifted his helmet.

Elsa, with cold unflickering eyes, offered his greeting no recognition
whatever. The man felt that she was looking through him, inside of
him, searching out all the dark comers of his soul. He dropped his
gaze, confused. Then Elsa calmly turned to the boy.

"Come, Chong."

There was something in the manner of her exit that infinitely puzzled
him. It was the insolence of the well-bred, but he did not know it.
To offset his chagrin and confusion, he put on his helmet and passed
into the private office. She was out of his range of understanding.

Mallow was an American by birth but had grown up in the Orient,
hardily. In his youth he had been beaten and trampled upon, and now
that he had become rich in copra (the dried kernels of cocoanuts from
which oil is made), he in his turn beat and trampled. It was the only
law he knew. He was without refinement, never having come into contact
with that state of being long enough to fall under its influence. He
was a shrewd bargainer; and any who respected him did so for two
reasons, his strength and his wallet. Such flattery sufficed his
needs. He was unmarried; by inclination, perhaps, rather than by
failure to find an agreeable mate. There were many women in Penang and
Singapore who would have snapped him up, had the opportunity offered,
despite the fact that they knew his history tolerably well.
Ordinarily, when in Penang and Singapore, he behaved himself, drank
circumspectly and shunned promiscuous companions. But when he did
drink heartily, he was a man to beware of.

He hailed the consul-general cordially and offered him one of his
really choice cigars, which was accepted.

"I say, who was that young woman who just went out?"

The consul-general laid down the cigar. The question itself was
harmless enough; it was Mallow's way of clothing it he resented.
"Why?" he asked.

"She's a stunner. Just curious if you knew her, that's all. We came
down on the same boat. Hanged if I shouldn't like to meet her."

"You met her on board?"

"I can't say that. Rather uppish on the steamer. But, do you know
her?" eagerly.

"I do. More than that, I have always known her. She is the daughter
of the late General Chetwood, one of the greatest civil-engineers of
our time. When he died he left her several millions. She is a
remarkable young woman, a famous beauty, known favorably in European
courts, and I can't begin to