ns
which flowed past the car, and her eyes returned to his face with a
question in them. Her hand snuggled into his.

"Tell me the truth, Peter. You thought I was just an innocent,
helpless little thing, now didn't you? You said to yourself, 'I'll get
myself into all sorts of trouble with her on my hands.' Didn't you say
that to yourself, Peter?"

"I did. You're right. You were not made for that place. If you'll
let me, I'll tell you what you were made for."

"You needn't," said Eileen with a sigh. "Because I know. You are
going to tell me that I am just the right size for a bungalow for two,
of which you are the second, and that I need some big man like yourself
to have around, to shield and protect me, to smooth and round off the
sharp corners of this harsh old life."

"How did you guess?" gasped Peter.

"Maybe your eyes said that when you told me to go home that day, and
maybe other men have told me the same thing! Anyway, that is what you
have come here to tell me--or haven't you?--that you are all ready now
to leave behind the terribly wicked and adventurous life you've been
leading, and settle down, and live respectably forever after! Isn't
that the truth?"

"You're something of a mind-reader."

"No, I'm not. But I have sense. Peter, I still think, just as I
thought that terrible night when you slid down the rope from the
_Vandalia_ with me dangling from your neck, that dreadful night on the
Whang-poo in the fog, that you're the finest and bravest man on earth.
That's why I let you make love to me on the bund; because--well,
because I wanted you to come back!"

"In return," Peter responded with enthusiasm, "I have kept you next to
my heart all of that time, thinking of you every time I felt
discouraged, looking upon you always as a refuge, exactly as you say,
when China got the best of me."

"Has China got the best of you, Peter?"

"It has! I was chased out of the Yellow Empire with a broken arm, by
agents of the same man who tried to kidnap you. I removed the splints
only this morning. Since I saw you, I have paid a visit to the
dreadful red city where you were being taken, escaped, and made my way
through India and the Straits Settlements and back to Hong Kong."

"And they shot you!"

He nodded, and she shivered again, while the fingers against his palm
stirred.

"I've put China behind me forever, I hope, and now, a little older, a
little wiser, and very weary, I've come to lay