“I knew you were English before I saw you, because I had heard your voice first. But when I looked to where the voice had sounded, it seemed to me—just for a moment—that China was not the long way off that it has been for years. You were wearing some material the color of much of our rarest jade. Almost all the ladies here were wearing white. It often looks to Chinese eyes as if every woman in the West went into mourning as soon as summer comes. That always jars a little. We love summer—the sun, the flowers, the heat, all that it stands for, and promises. Even our terrible Yellow Sorrow laughs and is happy when summer comes.” Ivy Gilbert had no idea what he meant. She never had heard of the Yangtse-kiang. She scarcely knew whether China had a river. But Sên King-lo, though he had had considerable gage of how dense the West’s ken of the East was, did not suspect her ignorance. Perhaps—because of the jade-green dress, Sên King-lo was forgetting himself a little. Even a Chinese man does that—under certain provocation—at twenty-seven. “White is our ‘black’ you know.” Yes, she had heard that—though it isn’t quite true; for the hemp garments of Chinese bereavement are nearer a dun drab than they are to the white that snow and lilies wear. “Your gown struck a note of Chinese color, those scarlet peppers”—she was wearing them still—“struck another: their vividness and their dangling. Every Chinese woman wears something that dangles.” “How do you know?” she interrupted him. “How do you know what Chinese _girls_ wear?” Sên King-lo laughed—his eyes even more than his mouth. Chinese gentlepeople have the most beautiful teeth in the world. “No, no,” he protested. “That was well-bowled. But you have not caught me out, leg before wicket. I have seen pictures of Chinese girls, Miss Gilbert. And I can read Chinese. Stickpins and girdle ornaments dangle in half the pages of Chinese romances. You _did_ remind me of my home—for the moment. Even the fern you were fanning yourself with added to the impression. You fanned yourself a little as we do—with a Chinese turn of your wrist. I am in your debt.” The girl made no reply beyond a chill, perfunctory smile. She was slightly amused, still more slightly interested, and not a little offended. She turned and, finding a chance, spoke with the man on her other side. After that the table talk became more general—as Miss Julia best liked it.