Sir Charles meant nothing by that, and Ivy Gilbert took nothing personal from it. Indeed, she did not know where Confucius was buried. A number of people in Christendom do not. And yet few bits of earth so small have wrought more of human history, human letters, human thought. And the centuries to come and the peoples of the future yet may veer and swing to that pivot, a crystal-tree-guarded grave in Kuifu. Reginald Hamilton certainly did not know where the bones of the old Sage took their long rest. But he shot a look of impudent question at the English girl. She did not see it, fortunately; nor did Sir Charles. But Lady Snow did. And she wished they’d change the subject. “I am not,” Ivy told her cousin. “Neither. I teach your children geography!” she reminded him with nipping coldness. “_Do you?_” he shot back at her. “You surprise me more and more. Emma,” he turned to his wife and said, not jokingly, “I think, if I were you, I’d write Sên King-lo a note—see that you get his name right—I’ll show you how to write it—and ask him to dinner. I wish you would.” “Of course I will, dear.” The wife was delighted. Charlie did not often back up her social activities, or much care who came to dinner or who did not, so long as his dinner was good and he was not expected to interrupt it with too much small talk, though he certainly preferred the did-nots to the dids. Lady Snow was very pleased. Ivy Gilbert was not. “I think,” she said clearly, “I’d wait first, and see if Mr. Sên did call, Emma.” Husband and wife looked at her in blank surprise, and they crossed a question to each other’s eyes. Never before had any one heard Ivy Gilbert veto any wish or command of her cousin Charles. “He promised to call,” Emma Snow said haltingly. “Then he will call!” Sir Charles pronounced. “A Chinese word is the best bond on earth. I’d take it before A-1 at Lloyd’s any day of the week.” Reginald Hamilton said nothing—though his big black-brown eyes sulked, and, to Lady Snow’s relief, the subject did drop then.