very quietly.

"That," he said, "can easily be disposed of."

"But do you seriously believe that you would be able to induce her to
return with you to Pekin?" Immelan persisted.

At that moment it chanced that Maggie turned her head and looked across
at the two men. Prince Shan leaned a little forward to meet her gaze.
His face was expressionless. The lines of his mouth were calm and
restful, yet in his eyes there glowed for a single moment the fire of a
man who looks upon the thing he covets.

"I seriously believe it," he answered under his breath.

CHAPTER XVI

Maggie leaned back in her chair with a little sigh of content. The
scarlet-coated waiter had just removed their tea tray, a pleasant breeze
was rustling through the leaves of the trees under which she and Prince
Shan were seated. From the distance came the low strains of a military
band. Everywhere on the lawns and along the paths men and women were
promenading.

"Confess that this is better than Rumpelmayer's or the Ritz," she
murmured lazily.

"It is better," he admitted. "It is a very wonderful place."

"You have nothing like it in China?" she asked him.

"It would not be possible," he answered. "Democracy there is confined to
politics. In other respects, our class prejudices are far more rigid
than yours. But then I see a great change in this country since I was
here as a student."

"You have lost your affection for it, perhaps?" she ventured, looking at
him through half-closed eyes.

"On the contrary," he assured her, "my gratitude towards her was never
so great as at this moment. Your country has given me nothing I prize
so much, Lady Maggie, as my knowledge of you."

She looked away from his very earnest eyes, and the light retort died
away upon her lips. The men and women whom she watched so steadfastly
seemed like puppets, the flowers artificial, the music unreal. Already
she was beginning to resent the influence which he was establishing over
her. The art of badinage in which she was so proficient stood her in no
stead. Words, even the power of light speech, had deserted her.

"Tell me about the changes that you see," she asked.

"Perhaps," he replied, after a moment's hesitation, "it is because I am
an occasional visitor that differences seem so marked to me, but look at
the tables there. That is the Duke of Illinton, is it not? At the next
table, the man in the strange clothes and uncomfortable hat--it seems to
me that I