ith's side. And still there was rustling behind, still there was the
whispering beat of life, and Keith knew that there were others. He did
not flinch, but smiled back at Shan Tung. A minute, no more, and the
soft-footed yellow men had performed their errands and were gone.

"Quick service," he acknowledged. "VERY quick service. Shan Tung! But I
have my hand on something that is quicker!"

Suddenly Shan Tung leaned over the table. "John Keith, you are a fool
if you came here with murder in your heart," he said. "Let us be
friends. It is best. Let us be friends."

XXI

It was as if with a swiftness invisible to the eye a mask had dropped
from Shan Tung's face. Keith, preparing to fight, urging himself on to
the step which he believed he must take, was amazed. Shan Tung was
earnest. There was more than earnestness in his eyes, an anxiety, a
frankly revealed hope that Keith would meet him halfway. But he did not
offer his hand again. He seemed to sense, in that instant, the vast
gulf between yellow and white. He felt Keith's contempt, the spurning
contumely that was in the other's mind. Under the pallid texture of his
skin there began to burn a slow and growing flush.

"Wait!" he said softly. In his flowing gown he seemed to glide to a
carven desk near at hand. He was back in a moment with a roll of
parchment in his hand. He sat down again and met Keith's eyes squarely
and in silence for a moment.

"We are both MEN, John Keith." His voice was soft and calm. His
tapering fingers with their carefully manicured nails fondled the roll
of parchment, and then unrolled it, and held it so the other could read.

It was a university diploma. Keith stared. A strange name was scrolled
upon it, Kao Lung, Prince of Shantung. His mind leaped to the truth. He
looked at the other.

The man he had known as Shan Tung met his eyes with a quiet, strange
smile, a smile in which there was pride, a flash of sovereignty, of a
thing greater than skins that were white. "I am Prince Kao," he said.
"That is my diploma. I am a graduate of Yale."

Keith's effort to speak was merely a grunt. He could find no words. And
Kao, rolling up the parchment and forgetting the urn of tea that was
growing cold, leaned a little over the table again. And then it was,
deep in his narrowed, smoldering eyes, that Keith saw a devil, a
living, burning thing of passion, Kao's soul itself. And Kao's voice
was quiet, deadly.

"I recognized you in McDowell