When Ivy Gilbert had inveighed against kissing and being kissed she had spoken straight to the soul (and the taste) of China, and the Chinese soul of Sên King-lo had sprung to her in response. Sên King-lo was no yellow-tinted “plaster saint.” But our Western habit of kissing, meaninglessly and otherwise, revolted him as much today as it had when his astonishment and disgust first had observed it. And he had avoided it—always. Girls, and here and there a wife, here in America, across the Atlantic, in several capitals—well, Sên King-lo knew that he might have kissed, if he would. A girl who stayed away from a presumably pleasant gaiety rather than receive a young hostess’ friendly kiss had intrigued him. And that charm and approval held when he had found less than he’d hoped in the girl at supper, and still held. But if she had interested him less than he her, she had not altogether failed to interest him, and he had liked her. He had sent his violets (they’d cost a fraction of what Miss Julia’s carnations had) with far less thought of further acquaintance than of gratitude for the picture she’d made—she and her gown and peppers and fan of fern. For that and for one other reason. Because of the picture she’d made, and because her name was “Ivy.” He’d heard her called so—and it had made an oddly strong appeal to him—a Chinese appeal. He had bought and sent the little offering of fragrant flowers not from any light or sudden impulse—Sên King-lo very rarely acted on impulse—but in quiet acknowledgment of a debt; and because her name was Ivy! Not very usual reasons for the sending of flowers—but then Sên King-lo was Chinese. In one thing Lucille had gossiped truly enough. Sên King-lo never had sent flowers to a girl before. And he had done it this time without either intention or any flicker of warmth. Just possibly the call of her youth to his had sent its young, quick message through more than he realized. Twenty-seven is not omniscient—not even twenty-seven of the quicker sense and Chinese born. He had known no “girls” of his own race. The many he’d known of the American and, but more slightly, half a dozen European races, had sent no message along the nerve wires of his personality, partly because they had both looked and seemed to him so utterly foreign, and because they had not seemed to him altogether girl-like. Miss Gilbert had had a hint of familiar look to him; she had said a Chinese-like thing—the first thing he’d heard her say—and if afterwards, she had not whipped his mind into foam and excitement, he had thought her maidenly. He had thought and sensed her maidenly. He was twenty-seven. And he was a man. And perhaps for this—certainly for something else—his face warmed when the English girl’s note of thanks—the merest, meaningless line—came to him on Monday.