sweet voice.

The great eyes, unveiled now by the black lashes, were two twin lakes of
fairest amber. They seemed to merge together, so that he stood upon
the brink of an unfathomable amber pool--which swallowed him up--which
swallowed him up.

He awoke to an instantaneous consciousness of the fact that he had been
guilty of inexcusably bad form. He could not account for his faintness,
and reclining there amid the silken cushions, with Madame de Medici
watching him anxiously, he felt a hot flush stealing over his face.

"What is the matter with me!" he exclaimed, and sprang to his feet. "I
feel quite well now."

She watched him, smiling, but did not speak. He was a "very young man"
again, and badly embarrassed. He glanced at his wrist-watch.

"Gracious heavens!" he cried, and noted that the tea-tray had been
removed, "there must be something radically wrong with my health. It is
nearly seven o'clock!"

The note of the silver bell sounded in the ante-room.

"Can you forgive me?" he said.

But Madame, rising to her feet, leaned lightly upon his shoulder, toying
with the petals of the orchid in his buttonhole.

"I think it was the perfume which that foolish Ah Li lighted," she
whispered, looking intently into his eyes, "and it is you who have to
forgive me. But you will, I know!" The silver bell rang again. "When
you have come to see me again--many, many times, you will grow to love
it--because I love it."

She touched the bell upon the table, and Ah Li entered silently. When
Madame de Medici held out her hand to him Deacon raised the white
fingers to his lips and kissed them rapturously; then he turned, the
Gascon within him uppermost again, and ran from the room.

A purple curtain was drawn across the lobby, screening the caller newly
arrived from the one so hurriedly departing.

IV

THE LIVING BUDDHA

It was past midnight when Colonel Deacon returned to the house. Rene was
waiting for him, pacing up and down the big library. Their relationship
was curious, as subsisting between ward and guardian, for these two,
despite the disparity of their ages, had few secrets from one another.
Rene burned to pour out his story of the wonderful Madame de Medici, of
the secret house in Chinatown with its deceptively mean exterior and
its gorgeous interior, to the shrewd and worldly elder man. That was his
way. But Fate had an oddly bitter moment in store for him.

"Hallo, boy!" cried the Colonel, looking