Well, of course I did, there were no two words about it. "Very well," I answered, "Little Lady of my heart, I'll stick by the old chap too. I've crept up here in a sort of underhand way, but not for underhand reasons. After all, I've just as much right to love you as anybody else in this world." I took her by her sweet hands and I laughed in her face. "I'm not the Duke of Perth," I said, "but, but, Juanita--?" There came a little knocking at the door. Juanita swirled round, flung up her arm--I saw her sweet face glowing for an instant--and then she seemed to whirl away like an autumn leaf. The only thing I could possibly do was to light a cigarette. Juanita, having met me, having delivered her ultimatum, having turned me into a jelly, flitted away quite oblivious of the fact that I was a burglar, an intruder into what was probably the most guarded and secret place in Europe at that moment. My heart sang high music, and that was well. But at the same time I recognized that I was in the deuce of a mess and had planned out no course of action at all. I prayed, almost audibly, for Pu-Yi. But nobody came. There I was in the sexagonal room, with the gold dragons with their jeweled eyes leering at me. A dull anger welled up within me. On every side, mentally as well as physically, I seemed baffled, hemmed in. I determined, at any risk to myself, to get out into the library. I took two steps towards the door through which Juanita had gone, when I heard a sharp snap just behind me. I whipped round, clutching the only weapon I had--which was a brass knuckle-duster in the side pocket of my coat, and then I stood absolutely still. One of the dragon panels had rolled up like a theater curtain, and standing in what appeared to be the end of a passage, was the great brute Mulligan, with a Winchester rifle at his shoulder, covering me. As a man does in the presence of imminent danger, I swerved out of the line of the deadly barrel. As I did so--click! A second panel disappeared, and I was confronted by Gideon Morse, his hands in the pockets of his dinner jacket, his mouth faintly smiling, his eyes inscrutable. Imagine it! let the picture appear to you of the fool, Thomas Kirby, trapped like a rat! Once, twice I swallowed in my throat, and I swear it wasn't from fear but only from an enormous, immeasurable disgust. I turned to Morse. "You've been listening," I said, "you and your servant here." "I have been listening, Sir Thomas Kirby, that's true. I have every right to. When a man breaks into my house without my knowledge and makes clandestine love to my daughter, he's not the person to accuse one of eavesdropping. As for my servant there, you do me an injustice, which I find harder to forgive than anything, when you suggest that I allowed him to overhear what passed in this room just now. He was not at his post until Juanita had been gone from here some seconds. Mulligan, you can go now. Sir Thomas, please come with me into the library."