xpression was shrewd and cunning.

"Miss Borria," he remarked stiffly, "I told you last night you're
clever; and now you've given me just one more reason to stick to my
guns; one more reason to believe that you know more than you're
supposed to know. Now, let's be perfectly frank--for once. Let's not
erase any more rouge stripes, so to speak. Won't you please tell me
just what you do know about my activities in this neighborhood?"

His outflung gesture indicated the whole of Asia.

The girl pursed her lips and a hard twinkle, like that of a frosty
arc-light upon diamonds, came into her eyes. "Yes, Mr. Moore," she
said vigorously, "I will. But you must promise--promise faithfully--to
ask no questions. Will you do that?"

Peter nodded with a willingness that was far from assumed.

Romola Borria placed the tips of her slender, white fingers together
and looked down at them pensively. "Well," she said, looking up and
raising her voice slightly, "you escaped from the liner _Vandalia_ in
the middle of the Whang-poo River, at night, in a deep fog, in a
sampan, with a young woman named Eileen Lorimer in your arms. This
occurred after you had delivered her from the hands of certain men,
whom I prefer to call, perhaps mysteriously, by the plain word _them_.

"You sent this young lady home on the _Manchuria_, or the _Mongolia_, I
forget just which. That night on the bund near the French legation,
you met, quite by accident, another young lady who found your
companionship quite desirable. Her name was Miss Amy Vost, a bright
little thing."

"You don't happen to know," put in Peter ironically, "what Miss Lorimer
had for breakfast this morning, by any chance?"

"At last accounts she was studying for a doctor's degree in the
university at San Friole, Mr. Moore."

"Indeed!" It was on the tip of Peter's tongue to tell this astounding
Romola Borria that she was nothing short of a mind-reader. Instead, he
nodded his head for her to continue.

"As I was saying, you met Miss Vost, quite by accident, and danced with
her at a fancy dress ball at the Astor House. You wore the costume of
a Japanese merchant, I believe, thinking, a little fatuously, if you
will permit me, that those garments were a disguise. A little later in
the bar at the Palace Hotel, after you left Miss Vost, you met a sea
captain, ex-first mate of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha steamer, the _Sunyado
Maru_. He was an old friend.

"With Captain MacLaurin an