He sat down on the veranda steps, at Miss Julia’s feet, and began thrumming an old camp-meeting song. Ivy Gilbert thought the words preposterous, but the lilt was very pretty—and Miss Julia beat time softly on the porch railing with her tortoise-shell lorgnette—and Miss Julia joined in the chorus. Every one did—except Ivy Gilbert. He sang “My Old Dutch”—Ivy knew that; and he sang a darky love-song. How could _he_ do that? Then he started Harry Lauder’s London latest. And the English girl, who never had heard of China’s Yellow Sorrow or of Omi or of Marco Polo, had heard of Harry Lauder. Miss Julia hinted deftly at “goodnight” with, “And now the best for the last. One of your own!” Sên King-lo made the borrowed banjo wail like a soft wind that grieved and trembled in the moonlight—and then drifted words into the accompaniment that the girl fancied he was improvising. “There is some one of whom I keep a-thinking; There is some one whom I visit in my dreams, Though a hundred hills stand sentinel between us, And the dark rage of a hundred sunless streams. For the same bright moon is kind to us. And the same untrammeled wind to us. Daring a hundred hills, Whispers the word that thrills. And the dust of my heart, laid bare, Shows the lilies that linger there,” he sang. And then the good-bys were said. And Miss Julia and Ivy Gilbert were left alone. Sên King-lo lingered over Miss Townsend’s hand. Ivy feared he was going to offer to touch hers. But he did not, he merely bowed, and without speaking. The girl was grateful for that. She stood a moment at her window, looking at the roses in the moonlight, before she drew her curtain and began to undress. And, as she stood looking out across the garden, she drew the scarlet peppers from her bodice and threw them, testily, out into the night. CHAPTER V As they sat at breakfast—Miss Julia and the girl—Lysander brought his mistress, and proffered on a great silver salver, a florist’s ribbon-bound box. There were carnations in it, great dusky, imperial, wine-deep carnations, ruby red ones, flaming scarlet, blush pink and lemon, and a handful just the color of tomatoes. Julia Townsend gathered them up in her hands with a murmur of delight—as many of them as her hands could hold, and hung her pleased face over their sumptuous fragrance. “I never give a friend’s gift away—or any part of it,” she said, “or you should have half of these. They belong to youth,” she added a little sadly—but quite bravely. “But you shall smell them.” The girl could not help smelling them. They scented the room. Miss Julia took the visiting-card from the box as if she knew whose it would prove, read it with a smile, and passed it—as if proud of it—to Ivy.