Yeh Ling looked up at the frail scaffolding that supported the vat and the narrow platform and wondered how many western building laws he was breaking. The second tub was now brimming with the grey concrete and a third and a fourth were being fixed. All this Yeh Ling saw from his place on the steps, a cigar clenched between his small teeth. He saw the workmen climb down the ladders from the interior of the new tubs, and he glanced at the sun and rose. A blue-bloused Chinaman ludicrously handling a fan came running toward him. “Yeh Ling, we must wait four days for the water-stone to grow hard. Tomorrow I will strengthen the wall of the terrace.” “You have done well,” said Yeh Ling. “I thought you wrong,” said the builder nodding, “it seemed so much money to waste. He that is not offended at being misunderstood is a superior man.” “He that fears to correct a fault is not a brave man,” said Yeh Ling, giving one saying of Confucius for another. The workmen lived on the spot; their fires were burning when he left the ground. On the roadway was a small black car, a noisy testimony to the efficiency of mass production and into this he stepped. He did not drive away for a long time, but sat hunched up at the wheel, his head sunk in thought. Once he glanced at the pillar in making; speculatively as though his meditations had to do with this. It was growing dark when at last he put his foot upon the starting plug and rattled away into the gloom. He left the car at the side door of the restaurant and passed in. “The lady is in No. 6,” said his personal servant, “she wishes to see you.” There was no need for Yeh Ling to ask which lady. Only one had the right of entry to No. 6. He went straight to her, dusty as he was, and found Ursula Ardfern sitting before an untouched meal. She was very pale and a shadow lay beneath her grey eyes. She looked up quickly as he came in. “Yeh Ling, did you read all the papers we found in the house?” she asked. “Some of them,” he said cautiously. “The other night you said that you had read them all,” she said reproachfully, “and you were not speaking the truth!” He agreed with a gesture. “There are so many,” he said, excusing himself, “and some are very difficult. Lady, you do not realize how many there were--” “Was there anything about me?” she asked. “There were references to you,” he said. “Much of the writing was in the nature of a diary. It is hard to disentangle item from item.” She knew he was evading a direct answer. “Was there any mention of my father or mother?” she challenged him directly. “No,” he said, and her grey eyes searched his face. “You are not speaking the truth, Yeh Ling,” she said in a low voice. “You think if you speak--if you think I know, that I shall be hurt. Isn’t that true? And because you would not hurt me, you are lying?” He showed no evidence of embarrassment at the accusation.