There was something so magnetic about this strange and compelling personality that I followed him without a word. "Then you knew," I asked in a husky voice, "you knew all the time?" He smiled. "Yes," he said, "I arranged a little comedy. The faithful Mulligan was not drugged at all, and I did everything to facilitate your entrance." "Then that treacherous cur, Pu-Yi, was playing with me the whole time! And yet I could have sworn that he was genuine. When I meet him--" "You will shake hands with him if you are a wise man. Pu-Yi was absolutely genuine, but he, in common with my daughter, knew nothing of the truth until you told it him. He had believed me a madman. Then he understood not only the peril in which I was, and am, but also that of my daughter. Do you think, Kirby, that I should have built these towers, let imagination transcend itself, made myself the cynosure of Europe, unless I was sure of what I was doing? Now, alas, you've told Juanita, and brought terror into her life as well as mine." "Sir," I said, "her relief is greater than any fear. I'll answer for that." I faced him fair and square. "God knows," I said, "I'm not worth a single glance of her sweet eyes, but somehow or other she loves me, though she wouldn't fly with me when I suggested it." "She has some decent feeling left," he answered, with a dry chuckle. "Well, I overheard everything that passed in that little room and I must say I rather appreciate the way in which you behaved. You are a rapid thinker, Sir Thomas. What suggests itself to you as the next move in our relations?" "Quite obvious, sir. You give your consent to my engagement with your daughter. You please her, you bind me to your interests by hoops of steel--though as a matter of fact I'm bound already--and you add a not invaluable auxiliary to your staff." "Very well," he said, perfectly calmly, and held out his hand. "Now come and have some supper and tell me all you know." Then that astonishing man thrust his arm through mine and led me down the great library. "What a marvelous intellect that fellow Pu-Yi has," he said confidentially. "He saw the situation in all its bearings, from all sides at once, and made an instant decision. I'll tell you now, Kirby, that he actually predicted every detail of what has just come to pass. He told me that he owed you his life and was perfectly ready to die for you, as of course for me and my daughter, but that it had occurred to him that his living for all three of us might be by far the wisest attitude to adopt under the circumstances. I quite agree with him." Then again came the little dry, strange chuckle. "But no more peddling poppy-juice to my Chinese, my boy. It plays the devil with their nerves in the end!" CHAPTER ELEVEN