t which would accompany you should you become a clerk
in a shop."

"That is what I wanted to know," said Ruth gravely. "The poor
things!"

The manager laughed. "Your sympathy is being wasted. They are the
only happy women in the Orient."

"Do you suppose he knew?"

"He? Oh, you mean Mr. Taber?" He wondered if this crystal being was
interested in that blundering fool who had gone recklessly into the
city. "I don't know what his idea was."

"Will there be any danger?"

"To Mr. Taber? There is a possibility. Canton at night is as much
China as the border town of Lan-Chow-fu. A white man takes his life
in his hands. But Ah Cum is widely known for his luck. Besides," he
added cynically, "it is said that God watches over fools and
drunken men."

This expression was old in Ruth's ears. She had heard the trader
utter it many times.

"Thank you," she said, and left the office.

The manager stared at the empty doorway for a space, shrugged, and
returned to his ledgers. The uncanny directness of those gray eyes,
the absence of diffidence, the beauty of the face in profile (full,
it seemed a little too broad to make for perfect beauty), the
mellow voice that came full and free, without hesitance, all
combined to mark her as the most unusual young woman he had ever
met. He was certain that those lips of hers had never known the
natural and pardonable simper of youth.

Was she interested in that young ass who was risking his bones over
there in the city? They had come up on the same boat. Still, one
never could tell. The young fellow was almost as odd in his way as
the girl was in hers. He seldom spoke, and drank with a persistence
that was sinister. He was never drunk in the accepted meaning of
the word; rather he walked in a kind of stupefaction. Supposing Ah
Cum's luck failed for once?

The manager made a gesture of dismissal, and added up the bill for
the Misses Jedson, who were returning to Hong-Kong in the morning.

CHAPTER VI

Sidney Carton, thought Ruth, in pursuit of a sing-song girl! The
idea was so incongruous that a cold little smile parted her lips.
It seemed as if each time her imagination reached out investingly,
an invisible lash beat it back. Still, she knew instinctively that
all of Sidney Carton's life had not been put upon the printed page.
But to go courting a slave-girl, at the risk of physical hurt! A
shudder of distaste wrinkled her shoulders.

She opened the window, for the night wa