big, generous heart at her feet a hundred
times. Being fair and sympathetic, she did not kick it to one side.
She merely side-stepped.

He closed that evening's interview with the threat that he would follow
her to the very ends of the earth. She gave him the opportunity,
literally, by observing dryly that her destination was precisely at the
world's end--in the hills of Szechuen, to be exact.

He took the breath out of her mouth by saying that he would travel on
the same river-boat with her to Ching-Fu, if he had to scrub down decks
for his passage. She told him not to be a silly boy; that he was,
underneath his uncouthness, really a dear, but that he didn't know
women.

When the _Sunyado Maru_ dropped anchor off Woo-sung, Miss Vost let
Bobbie hold her hand an instant longer than was necessary, and
stubbornly refused to accompany him in the same sampan--or the same
tug--to the customs jetty. Summarily, she went up the Whang-poo all
alone, while Bobbie, biting his finger-nails, purposely quarreled with
the staid British captain, and was invited to sign off, which he did.

Through devious subterranean channels Bobbie MacLaurin found that the
berth of master on the _Hankow_ was vacant, the latest incumbent having
relinquished his spirit to cholera. Was he willing to assume the
tremendous responsibility? He was tremendously willing! Did he
possess good papers? He most assuredly did!

When the Shanghai express rolled into the Nanking station, Bobbie
MacLaurin climbed into a rattling rickshaw and clattered off in the
direction of the river-front, registering the profound hope that Miss
Vost had somehow managed to reach the _Hankow_ ahead of him. Peter
Moore, who knew China's ancient capital like a book, struck off in a
diagonal direction on foot.

He made his way to a Chinese tailor's, who bought from him the Japanese
costume and sold him a suit of gray tweeds, which another customer had
failed to call for. While not an adornment, the gray tweeds were
comfortably European, a relief from the flapping, clumsy kimono.

He wanted to have a little talk with Miss Vost before she saw Bobbie.
He had so much affection for Bobbie that he wanted to ask Miss Vost to
please not be unnecessarily cruel with him. He did not know that Miss
Vost was never unnecessarily cruel to any living creature; for he made
the mistake there of classifying all women into the good and the cruel,
of which Miss Vost seemed to be among the