ony, as the Britishers put it; both of them returning to
the States for bread and butter.

"Why didn't you put up here?" she asked. "There is plenty of room."

"Well, I thought perhaps it would be better if I stayed at the Palace."

"Nonsense! Who cares?"

"I do." And this time he did not smile.

"I suppose my Chinaman will be waiting in the lobby."

"Let's toddle along, then."

Dennison followed her out of the tea room, his gaze focused on the back of
her neck, and it was just possible to resist the mad inclination to bend
and kiss the smooth, ivory-tinted skin. He was not ready to analyze the
impulse for fear he might find how deep down the propellant was. A woman,
young in the heart, young in the body, and old in the mind, disillusioned
but not embittered, unafraid, resourceful, sometimes beautiful and
sometimes plain, but always splendidly alive.

Perhaps the wisest move on his part was to avoid her companionship, invent
some excuse to return by the way of Manila, pretend he had transfer
orders. To spend twenty-one days on the same ship with her and to keep his
head seemed a bit too strong. Had there been something substantial
reaching down from the future--a dependable job--he would have gone with
her joyously. But he had not a dollar beyond his accumulated pay; that
would melt quickly enough when he reached the States. He was thirty; he
would have to hustle to get anywhere by the time he was forty. His only
hope was that back in the States they were calling for men who knew how to
manage men, and he had just been discharged--or recalled for that
purpose--from the best school for that. But they were calling for
specialists, too, and he was a jack of all trades and master of none.

He knew something about art, something about music, something about
languages; but he could not write. He was a fair navigator, but not fair
enough for a paying job. He could take an automobile engine apart and
reassemble it with skill, but any chauffeur could do that.

"Hadn't we better go into the parlour?" he heard Jane asking as they
passed out.

"We'll be alone there. It will be easier for you to resist temptation, I
suppose, if there isn't any audience. Audiences are nuisances. Men have
killed each other because they feared the crowd might mistake common sense
for the yellow streak."

Instantly the thought leaped into the girl's mind: Supposing such an event
lay back of this strange silence about his home and his people