With a shriek which tore her throat, the girl threw herself up, backwards—and then on and on, without looking round, pursued by the light which lashed her own shadow in springs before her feet—pursued by long, soft, feathery feet—by feet which walked in red shoes, by the icy breath which blew at her back. She ran, screamed and ran— “Freder...! Freder...!” Her throat rattled, she fell. There were some stairs.... Crumbling stairs.... She pressed her bleeding hands, right and left, against the stone wall, by the stone steps. She dragged herself up. She staggered up, step by step.... There was the top. The stairs ended in a stone trap-door. The girl groaned: “Freder...!” She stretched both fists above her. She pushed head and shoulders against the trap-door. And one more groan: “Freder....” The door rose and fell back with a crash. Below—deep down—laughter.... The girl swung herself over the edge of the trap-door. She ran hither and thither, with outstretched hands. She ran along walls, finding no door. She saw the lustre which welled up from the depths. By this light she saw a door, which was latchless. It had neither bolt nor lock. In the gloomy wood glowed, copper-red, the seal of Solomon, the pentagram. The girl turned around. She saw a man sitting on the edge of the trap-door and saw his smile. Then it was as though she were extinguished, and she plunged into nothing.... CHAPTER VI The proprietor of Yoshiwara used to earn money in a variety of ways. One of them, and quite positively the most harmless, was to make bets that no man—be he never so widely travelled—was capable of guessing to what weird mixture of races he owed his face. So far he had won all such bets, and used to sweep in the money which they brought him with hands, the cruel beauty of which would not have shamed an ancestor of the Spanish Borgias, the nails of which, however, showed an inobliterable shimmer of blue; on the other hand, the politeness of his smile on such profitable occasions originated unmistakably in that graceful insular world, which, from the eastern border of Asia, smiles gently and watchfully across at mighty America. There were prominent properties combined within him which made him appear to be a general representative of Great Britain and Ireland, for he was as red-haired, chaff-loving and with as good a head for drink as if his name had been McFosh, avaricious and superstitious as a Scotsman and—in certain circumstances, which made it requisite, of that highly bred obliviousness, which is a matter of will and a foundation stone of the British Empire. He spoke practically all living languages as though his mother had taught him to pray in them and his father to curse. His greed appeared to hail from the Levant, his contentment from China. And, above all this, two quiet, observant eyes watched with German patience and perseverance. As to the rest, he was called, for reasons unknown, September.