HE sent in his name, and waited for an hour in an outer office. For even at this late hour in the evening headquarters was a busy place. Chinese gentlemen crowded in and out, dressed, to a man, in the frock coats and the flapping black trousers they didn't know how to wear. High officers slipped quietly in and out—in khaki, with the white brassard of the Revolution on their left arms; sometimes with merely a handkerchief tied there Orderlies and messengers came and went. And clerks of untiring patience sat at desks.

It was a difficult hour. Rocky had only his confused emotions to guide him, and his hurt heart. There were moments, even, when he didn't know why he had come. But he never thought of giving up. Whatever their curious relations, he had to see Mr. Doane, who was now the only stable figure in the rocking world about him. The man had been fine—square. That he knew now. And his nervous young imagination was veering toward hero-worship. He was utterly humble.

Naturally he was boyish about it, when they finally led him into that inner office. He said, flushing a little:

“I know you're busy, Mr. Doane—”

“Not too busy for you. I kept you waiting to clear up a lot of things.” The man's great size and calmness of manner—the question rose; had he ever in his life known weariness?—were comforting.

“I'm—sailing Saturday.”

This, for a brief moment, brought the kindly though strong and sober face to immobility.

“You see, sir, I've come to feel that the best thing for me is to go back and—-start clean.”

A slight mist came over Doane's eyes. What a struggle the boy had had of it! And how splendidly he was working through!.... Thought came about the children of the rich in America... the problem of it....

“I—couldn't go without seeing you. You see, sir, it's you, I guess, that've put me on my feet. I sort of—well, I want you to know that I am on them. It's been a strange experience, all round. A terrible experience, of course. It shakes you....”

“It has shaken me, too,” Doane observed simply.

“I know. That is, I see all that more clearly now. I was going to speak of it—it's one of the things, but first.... Mr. Doane, will you write to me? Once in a while? I mean, will you—could you find time to answer if I write to you? You see, it isn't going to be easy, over there. I've got to go clean outside my own crowd. And outside my family. They won't one of them understand what I'm up to. Not one. And—when you come right down to it, I suppose it's a question whether the thing licks me or not. But”—his shoulders squared; he looked directly into that kind, deeply shadowed face—“I don't believe it will lick me!”

“No,” said Doane, “it won't lick you.”

“I shall never be able to shake China off now. It's got me. And I don't know a thing about it yet. Of course I shall be reading and studying it up.”

“I'll send you a book once in a while.”

“And I know I'm coming back out here someday. But it won't be as my father wants me to come. You see, I'll have money.”

“A great responsibility, Rocky.”

“I know. I'm beginning to see that. But—I know all this must sound pretty young to you!—but I'm afraid I shall be leaning on you sometimes—”

“Write to me at those times.”

“All right. I will.”

“There is an amazing health in the American people.”

“Yes—that's so, of course.”

“It's a curiously blundering people, of course. And there's a hard, really a Teutonic strain—that blend of practical hard-headedness, even of cruelty, with sentimentality—”

Rocky's brows came together. Mr. Doane and his father plainly didn't use that word “sentimental” in the same sense, “—it comes down to a strain of—well, something between the old Anglo-Saxonism and the modern Prussianism. It's in us—in our driving business tactics, our narrow moral intolerance, our insistence on standardizing vulgar ideas—forcing every individual into a mold—in our extraordinary glorification of the salesman. We seem to have a good deal both of the British complacency and the rough aggressiveness of the German. But the health is there—wonderfully. What America needs is beauty—not the self-conscious swarming after it of earnest and misguided suburban ladies—but a quiet sense of the thing itself. Beauty—and simplicity—and patience—and tolerance—and faith. Prosperity has for the moment wrecked faith there. Simply too much money. But you'll find health growing up everywhere. Just let yourself grow with it. You've been deeply impressed by China. But if I were you, I'd let all that take care of itself. Never mind what you may come to feel next year or ten years from now. It may be mainly China or mainly America. Just work, and let yourself grow.”

At the door they clasped hands warmly. And then, finally, Rocky got to the point:

“Mr. Doane—this is what I wanted to say—I saw Hui Fei this afternoon, and—”

Doane was silent; but still gripped his hand, “—and we talked things all out. She knows I'm—knows I'm going back. And—this is it.... You don't mind my.... I think you ought to find time to go over there and see her. She seems puzzled about—I don't know quite how to say all this. You know how I've felt—feel.... Of course, the thing is to look the facts in the face. I hope I'm man enough to do that.” His voice was unsteady now. “I'm not the one. I never was. She was clear about it, to-day, but... I think you ought to see her. Oh, I'm sure it isn't just her father's will....”

Rocky found himself, without the slightest sense of ungentleness on the part of Mr. Doane, through the door and confusedly saying his good-by before the patient clerks and the waiting crowd in the anteroom. He walked back to the hotel with a warm glow of admiration and friendship in his heart. There would be—he knew, even then—sad hours, probably bitter hours, in the long struggle to come. But this talk was going to help.

On Doane the boy's announcement had an almost crushing effect. His spirit was not adjusted to happiness. The terrific strain of the work was a blessing. He framed, that night and during the following day, innumerable little chits to Hui Fei—pretexts, all, for a visit that needed no pretext. And the day passed. Self-consciousness was upon him; and a constant mental difficulty in making the situation credible. And there was the pressure of time; an awareness that to Hui Fei—perhaps even to the Witherys—his silence would soon demand a stronger explanation than the mere pressure of business. He had to keep reminding himself that the girl was helpless, that he himself was the only guardian whose authority she could recognize; his reason whispering from moment to moment that she would not touch the money he had so promptly put at her disposal. No, she would wait.

It was his old friend Henry Withery who brought him to it; appearing late on the Saturday afternoon, determined to drag him off for dinner.... Withery, looking every one of his forty-eight years, patient resignation in the dusty blue eyes, and a fine net of wrinkles about them. His slight limp was the only reminder of tortures inflicted by the Boxers in 1900, out in Kansuh. He had taken over the T'ainan-fu mission for a year after Doane left the church in 1907; and during two years now had been here in Shanghai.

“There's no good killing yourself here, Grig,” he said. “We've not had ten minutes with you yet, remember. And we must talk over that girl's affairs. She's very sweet about it, but it's plain that she's waiting on you.”

His tone was genial; quite the tone of their earlier friendship, with nothing left of the constraint that had come into their relationship during Doane's difficult years on the river—the years that couldn't be explained, even to old friends.... And Withery knew nothing of the curious personal problem of his and Hui Fei's lives. His manner made that clear.... It remained to be seen whether Mrs. Withery knew.

.... Doane, it will be noted, was still struggling, as of settled habit, with the thought of freeing the girl from the obligation laid upon her.

But Mrs. Withery didn't know, didn't dream. She was quite her whole-souled self. He might have been Hui Fei's father, from anything in her manner. He felt a conspirator.

Her father's tragic end accounted altogether for the girl's silence. She met him naturally, though, with a frank grip of the hand.

It was a pleasant enough family dinner. They talked the revolution, of course. No one in Shanghai at the beginning of that November talked anything else. Hui Fei quietly listened; her face very sober in repose. She seemed—she had always seemed—more delicately feminine in Western costume. She was more slender now; her face a perfect oval under the smooth, deep-shadowed hair. Her dark eyes, deep with stoically controlled feeling, rested on this or that speaker. Doane found them once or twice resting thoughtfully on himself.

After dinner Mrs. Withery, with a glance at her husband, laid a sympathetic hand on Hui's shoulder.

“My dear,” she said, all friendly sympathy, “Mr. Doane's time is precious, these days and nights. I know that you should take this opportunity to talk over your problems with him. I shall be bustling about here—suppose you take him out into the courtyard.”

Without a word they walked out there; stood by a gnarled tree whose twisted limbs extended over the low tiled roofs. There was a little light from the windows. The long silence that followed was the most difficult moment yet. Doane found himself breathing rather hard. In Hui Fei he felt the calm Oriental patience that underlay all her Western experiences. She simply waited for him to speak.

He looked down at her, quite holding his breath. She seemed almost frail out here, in the half light. He was fighting, with all his strength and experience, the warm sweet feelings that drugged his brain.

“My dear—” he began; then, when she looked frankly up at him, hesitated. He hadn't known he was going to begin with any such phrase as that. He got on with it...."I'm wondering how I can best help you. If I were a younger man there would be no question as to what I would have to say to you.” Utterly clumsy, of course; with little light ahead; just a dogged determination to serve her without hurting her.

“I think a good 'eal of wha' they tell me you're doing”—thus Hui Fei, in a low but clear voice; not looking up now. “I've almos' envied you. Helping li' that.”

“It must be hard for you—with all your mental interests—to sit quietly here.”

“My min' goes on, of course,” she said. “Yes, it isn' ver' easy.”

This was getting them nowhere. Doane, after a deep breath, took command of the situation. Sooner or later he would have to do that.

“Hui, dear,” he said now—very quietly, but directly, “this is a difficult situation for both of us. The only thing, of course, is to meet it as frankly as we can. I learned to love your father—”

She glanced up at this; her eyes glistened as the light caught them.

“—but we can not blindly follow his wishes. He had seen and felt the West, but he died a Manchu.”

Her soft lips framed the one word, “Yes.” The softness of her whole face, indeed, was disconcerting; it was all sober emotion, that she plainly didn't think of trying to hide.

“And I'm sure you'll understand me when I tell you that I can not accept his legacy.”

She startled him now with the low but direct question: “Why not?”

“My dear....” He found difficulty in going on.

“I don' know what I ought 'o say.” He barely heard this; stopped a little. “I don' know wha' to do.”

“Can't you, dear—isn't there some clear vision in your heart—don't you see your way ahead? Remember, you will always have me to help—if I can help. It will mean everything to me to be your dearest friend.”

“I want 'o work with you,” she murmured.

“I haven't dared believe that possible,” he said thoughtfully.

“Do you wan' me to?”

“Yes. But it has to be clearer than that.” He was stupid again; he sensed it himself. “There is so much of life ahead of you. It's got to be clear that wherever your heart may lead you, child—that you shall have my steady friendship. The rest of it can grow as it may.”

“I wan'....” He couldn't make out the words; he bent down close to her lovely face. “I want 'o marry you.”

They both stood breathless then. Timidly her hand crept into his and nestled there.

“Tha's the trouble”—her voice was a very little stronger—“there isn' anything else. It's ever'thing you think an' do—ever'thing you believe. We're both between the worl's, so....”

The noise in his brain was like the pealing of cathedral bells at Christmas time. Yet in this rush of ecstatic feeling he suddenly saw clearly. The fabric of their companionship had hardly begun weaving. All his experience, his delicacy, his fine human skill, must be employed here. Ahead lay happiness! It was still nearly incredible.... And there lay—extending before them in a long vista—their intense common interest. The thing was to make a fine success of it. Build through the years.

And happiness was greatly important. He had so nearly missed it.... Looking up through the branches of the old tree, he smiled.

Then he led her into the house.

“Have you had your talk already?” asked Mrs. Withery pleasantly.

“We've settled everything,” said Doane. “We're going to be married.”

“Very soon,” said Hui Fei.

THE END