For a moment I quite forgot what this new friend might mean to me, and opened out to him without a thought of further advantage. I was a fool, no doubt. Afterwards, talking it all over with Pat Moore and Arthur Winstanley, I saw that I ran a great risk. Anyhow, I reciprocated Pu-Yi's confidence as well as I could. "I'm awfully glad we've met, even under such unfortunate circumstances. You are quite right. I come of a different class from what the ordinary frequenter of this hotel might suppose, but since you have discovered it I beg you to keep it entirely to yourself. I also have had my misfortunes. Perhaps I also am longing for some ultimate happiness or triumph." Out of the box he took a cigarette, and his long, delicate fingers played with it. "Brother," he said, "I understand, and I say again, now that I can say it in a new voice, my life is yours." Then I began on my own account. "Tell me," I said, "of yourself. Many of your fellow-countrymen come here--the lower orders--and they're all employed by the millionaire, Gideon Morse, who seems to prefer the men of China to any other. You also, Pu-Yi, are connected with this colossal mystery?" He didn't answer for a moment, but looked down at the glowing end of his cigarette. "Yes," he replied, with some constraint, "I am in the service of the honorable Mr. Gideon Mendoza Morse. I am, in fact, his private secretary and through me his instructions are conveyed to the various heads of departments." "You are fortunate. I suppose that before long you will be able to fulfill your ambitions and retire to China?" With a quick glance at me he admitted that this was so. "And yet," I said thoughtfully, "it must be a very trying service, despite that you live in Wonderland, in a City of Enchantment." Again I caught a swift regard and he leant forward in his chair. "Why do you say that?" he asked. I hazarded a bold shot. "Simply because the man is mad," I said. His bright eyes narrowed to glittering slits. "You quote gossip of the newspapers," he replied. "Do I? I happen to know more than the newspapers do." He rose to his feet, took two steps towards me, and looked down with a twitching face. "Who _are_ you?" he said, and his whole frail frame trembled. I caught him firmly by the arm and stared into his face--God knows what my own was like. "I am the one who has been waiting, the one who is waiting, to help--the one who has come to save," I said, and my voice was not my own--it was as if the words were put into my mouth by an outside power. He wrenched his arm away, gave a little cry, strode to the mantelpiece and bent his head upon his arms. His whole body was shaken with convulsive sobs. I stood in the middle of the room watching him, hardly daring to breathe, feeling that my heart was swelling until it occupied the whole of my body. At length he looked up. "Then I shall be of some use to Her after all," he said. "This is too much honor. The Lily of White Jade--"