t noticed the
other girl before. It was evident that they were of the
same blood, but the other girl seemed older. She, too,
had sprung from a brown-eyed ancestry, and she, too,
was blond and pink and lovely, with the prettiest
fingers and finger-nails Peter had seen for some time.

Her glance, arising to meet his, was brown and very
calm; unlike her sister, she appeared to be grave, more
of the deliberate, thoughtful type.

It was in the shop of a Japanese silk merchant on
Motomatchi Chome that he had met them for the first
time. Several times on the trip across he had passed
them on the deck, always escorted by proud young men.

They were the most popular girls on shipboard.
Beauty rarely travels in pairs; these were unusual
twins.

Once, as Peter was swinging down the ladder from
topside, he came upon Peggy alone, looking rather blue.
It may have been that she was simply in repose; and
the contrast gave him that impression. Her eyes
dreamingly encountered his, and the mischievous light
flickered in them and instantly went out.

She ran her eyes down the white uniform with the
gold emblems of his profession at the lapels, dropped
her eyelids demurely, and seemed to wait. He hesitated,
and she stood still; but he passed on, leaving her
staring after him with a little pout. Obviously the
twins had traveled much!

CHAPTER II

It was on the night that the _King of Asia_ cleared Nagasaki for the
short run across the Yellow Sea into the flow of the Yangtze-Kiang that
Peter was sought out by that pleasant young man, Anthony Andover.

Ordinarily passengers were not allowed in the sacred quarters of the
wireless house. However, those who possessed daring spirits came up
anyway. Peggy Whipple came up there soon after that meeting on deck,
with permission from nobody, and Peter gave her about fifteen minutes
of his extremely important time on the average of nine times a day,
permitting her to adorn the extra chair in the wireless shack, where
she unconsciously revealed in her sudden and unexpected shiftings of
posture, several inches of adorable silken ankle. I think Peggy was
sadly in need of an elderly chaperone, and I am somehow under the
impression that Peggy very badly wanted Peter to make love to her. How
he resisted her speaks volumes for his quaint, mid-Victorian views
regarding woman.

And at the end of the fifteen minutes, after regaling her with tales of
the lands she was about to visi