She climbed into his lap again after that, and scolded him for making the unintelligible English sounds, and made signs for him to smoke; and he showed her his water-soaked cigarettes. At a low-pitched exclamation he turned with a nervous start. The tall eunuch stood on the cabin roof; came quickly forward for the child. And beside him was Miss Hu Fei, still of course wearing the Chinese coat and trousers in which she had escaped from the steamer. She had, under the warm sun, thrown aside the curiously modern opera wrap. She was slim, young, delicately feminine. The boy gazed at her reverently. She seemed to him a fairy, an unearthly creature, worlds beyond his reach. In his excitement, but a few hours back--in what he had supposed to be their last moment together, in what, indeed, had seemed the end of the world--he had declared his love for her. That had been an uprush of pure emotion.... He recalled it now, yet found it difficult to accept as an occurrence. The actual world had turned unreal to him, as it does to the sensitively young that suffer poignantly. To this grave young woman, oddly his shipmate, he could hardly, he felt now, have spoken a personal word. Their acquaintance had begun at a high emotional pitch; now it must begin again, normally. So it seemed to him. “We were looking for my li'l sister,” she explained, and half turned. The eunuch had already disappeared with the child. “Won't you sit out here--with me?” He spoke hesitantly. “That is, unless you are too tired to visit.” “I coul'n' sleep,” said she. Slowly she came out on the gallery. “There aren't any chairs,” said he. “Perhaps I could find--” “I don' mind.” She sank to the floor; leaned wearily against the rail. He settled himself in a corner. “I couldn't sleep either. You see--Miss Hui--Miss Fei”--he broke into a chuckle of embarrassment--“honest I don't know what to call you.” The unexpected touch of boyish good humor moved her nearly to a smile. Boyish he was, sitting with his feet curled up, stabbing at the deck with his jackknife, coatless, collarless, his thick hair tousled, blushing pleasantly. “My frien's call me Hui,” she replied simply. “Oh--really! May I--If you would--of course I know that--but my friends call me Rocky. The whole thing is Rockingham Bruce Kane. But....” “I'll call you Misser Kane,” said she. His face fell a very little; but quickly he recovered himself. “You must have wondered--I suppose it seems as if I've done a rather crazy thing--it _must_ seem so...” She murmured, “Oh, no!” “Attaching myself to your party this way---at such a difficult time. I know it was a pretty impulsive thing to do, but....” His voice trailed into silence. For a brief moment this wild act seemed, however different in its significance to himself, of a piece with his other wild acts. It was, perhaps, like all those, merely ungoverned egotism. Her voice broke sweetly in on this moment of gloomy reverie.