f this
lonely and cruel land.

Heywood had thrown after them a single gloomy stare, down the pointed
aisle of bamboos.

"Well matched!" he growled. "Chantel--He bounds in the saddle, and he
bounds afoot!"

Rudolph knew that he had hated Chantel at sight.

He could not bring himself, next day, to join their party for tiffin at
the Flowery Pagoda. But in the midst of his brooding, Teppich and the
fat Sturgeon assailed the nunnery gate with pot-valiant blows and
shouts. They had brought chairs, to carry him off; and being in no mood
to fail, though panting and struggling, they packed him into a
palanquin with many bottles of the best wine known to Fliegelman and
Sons. By a short cut through the streets--where checkered sunshine,
through the lattice roof, gave a muddy, subdued light as in a roiled
aquarium--the revelers passed the inland wall. Here, in the shade,
grooms awaited them with ponies; and scrambling into saddle, they
trotted off through gaps in the bamboos, across a softly rolling
country. Tortuous foot-paths of vivid pink wound over brilliant green
terraces of young paddy. The pink crescents of new graves scarred the
hillsides, already scalloped and crinkled with shelving abodes of the
venerable dead. Great hats of farmers stooping in the fields, gleamed in
the sun like shields of brass. Over knolls and through hollows the
little cavalcade jogged steadily, till, mounting a gentle eminence, they
wound through a grove of camphor and Flame-of-the-Forest. Above the
branches rose the faded lilac shaft of an ancient pagoda, ruinously
adorned with young trees and wild shrubs clinging in the cornices.

At the foot of this aged fantasy in stone, people were laughing. The
three riders broke cover in time to see Mrs. Forrester, flushed and
radiant, end some narrative with a droll pantomime. She stood laughing,
the life and centre of a delighted group.

"And Gilbert Forrester," she cried, turning archly on her husband,
"said that wasn't funny!"

Gilly tugged his gray moustache, in high good-nature. Chantel, Nesbit,
and Kempner laughed uproariously, the padre and the dark-eyed Miss Drake
quietly, Heywood more quietly, while even stout, uneasy Mrs. Earle
smiled as in duty bound. A squad of Chinese boys, busy with
tiffin-baskets, found time to grin. To this lively actress in the white
gown they formed a sylvan audience under the gnarled boughs and
the pagoda.

"Too late!" called the white-haired giant, indulgently,