Then, for a moment, his old turbulent inner self unexpectedly (even to himself), lifted its head. “I tried to see Mr. Doane--that is, I thought perhaps I ought to tell him that I was coming out here.” She seemed slightly puzzled at this. Her lips framed questioningly the words: “Tell him?” “I--I perhaps can't say much--but I'm sure you and he will be happy. I--oh, he's a big man. He's terribly busy now, of course--you know what he's doing--at Wu Ting Fang's headquarters?” She inclined her head rather wearily, saying: “He wrote me a ver' kin note--jus' to say that he was busy.” “They talk about him some at the hotel. All of a sudden he seems to be a power here.” She went without a further word into the house, returning with a slip of paper. Into her manner had crept at the mention of Doane's name, a gentler, more wistful quality that she seemed not to think of concealing; it was even a confiding quality, intimately friendly. “I don' quite un'erstand it,” she said. “A gen'leman called from the Hong Kong Bank an' lef' this.” Rocky read the paper; a receipt for a sealed parcel of pearls and for other separate jewels and a sum of money. “Oh--he put it all there in your name,” said he, while a sudden new hope rose into his drying throat and throbbed in his temples. “Yes. It puzzle' me--a little.” He turned the paper over and over in his fingers, once again struggling to think.... She sat motionless, gazing at the dahlias. Blindly then he groped for her hands, found them and impulsively gripped them. “Hui”--he whispered huskily--“tell me--if it's like this--if you--if he.... All this time I've supposed you and he were.... I want you to come with me to America. We both do love it there. I'll give up my life to making you happy. I'll slave for you. I'll make of my life what you say. just let us try it together....” She silently heard him out--through this and much more, leaving her hands quietly in his. Finally then, when the emotional gust seemed in some measure to have spent itself, she said, gently: “Rocky, I wan' you to listen to what I'm going to tell you. You said I make you feel young. Well--can' you see why? Can' you see that I'm quite an ol' lady?” “But that's nonsense! You--” His eyes were feasting on her soft skin and on the exquisite curve of her cheek. “No--you mus' listen! First tel me how old you are.” Unexpectedly on the defensive, Rocky had to compose himself, arrange his dignity, before he could reply. “I was twenty-one in the summer.” “Ver' good. An' I was twenty-five in the spring.” “But--”