It was aptly done. He sat down beside her, and took graceful charge of her hand, while he encircled her waist. He had been flying to and fro long enough on P. & O. boats to have picked up, during his London sojourns, a fair Cockney vocabulary, which he used with a liquid accent; and he began talk with her, in honey-flavoured phrases, of Swatow, of Yokohama, Fuji Yama, Sarawak; of flowered islands, white towns and green bays, and sunlight like wine, and ... oh, a thousand things that the little cloudy head spun at hearing. They had more tea and cigarettes, and he bought a scented spice for her, and they left the café together, at about midnight, very glad. * * * * * When Marigold gave herself to Tai Ling, as I have explained in that row of dots, she did so because she was happy, and because Tai Ling had amused her, and was pleased with her. But why she met him again and yet again, it is difficult to say. It is difficult also to understand why Tai Ling, who so loved sunshine, and flower and blue water, should have lingered in fusty Limehouse for the space of a year. But the two of them seemed to understand their conduct, and both were happy. For Tai Ling had a little apartment in the Causeway, and thither Marigold would flit from time to time, until.... One evening, as they loafed together in the hot, lousy dusk, when the silence was so sharp that a footstep seemed to shatter the night, he learnt, in a flood of joy and curiosity and apprehension, that he was about to become papa. It overwhelmed him. He nearly choked. It was so astounding, so new, so wonderful, so ... everything that was inexpressible. Such a thing had not happened before to him. Hitherto, he had but loved and ridden away, the gay deceiver. But now—— He questioned, and conjectured what was to be done; and Marigold replied airily that it didn’t matter much; that if she had a little money she could arrange things. She spoke of a Poplar hospital ... good treatment ... quite all right; and thereupon she collapsed at his feet in a tempest of curls and tears. With that, his emotions cleared and calmed, and resolved themselves into one definite quantity—pride. He drew Marigold on to the cushions, and kissed her, and in his luscious tongue he sang to her; and this is, roughly, what he sang: an old song known to his father: “O girl, the streams and trees glory in the glamour of spring; the bright sun drops about the green shrubs, and the falling flowers are scattered and fly away. The lonely cloud moves to the hill, and the birds find their leafy haunts. All things have a refuge to which they fly, but I alone have nothing to which to cling. Wherefore, under the moon I drink and sing to the fragrant blossom, and I hold you fast, O flower of the waters, O moon-blossom, O perfect light of day!