“Her feelings,” replied Quong Ho calmly, “do not concern me. I doubt whether she has any of sentimental importance. It is with my own honourable conduct that I am preoccupied. I left China a person to whom Fung Yu would condescend: I return as a personage of high intellectual repute. I shall be able to seek a bride of a far higher social position than the daughter of Fung Yu. That is not all. My study of English literature has given me new conceptions of the intellectual companionship of married life. In the New China there are certainly young girls of high educational standard, among whom I might find one who could understand what I was talking about when I spoke of such philosophical topics as interested me. The point that, as a very young and humble man, I wish to submit to your infallible wisdom, for my guidance, is this: am I bound, as an honourable fellow, to marry, in Old China, the flower-like but cabbage-ignorant daughter of Fung Yu, the gardener, or am I justified in cutting the Rubicon and seeking in the New China for a real helpmate?” “Before proceeding,” replied Baltazar, with the bantering light in his grey eyes that Quong Ho could never interpret, “will you make a note for a conversation to-morrow on Mixture of Metaphors?” Quong Ho produced his notebook. “Yes, just that entry. Mixture of Metaphors. Good,” said he, when the methodical young Chinaman had obeyed. “Side issues, like that, have their great importance; but they must be followed after the main course has been traversed. The whole point of the matter is: how far have you committed yourself with the girl?” Quong Ho started back in his straight-backed wooden chair—they were still side by side at the lamplit centre of the long deal table—and held up his hands. “Committed myself? Oh no. The only time I ever addressed her was on one occasion when I relieved her of the burden of a vessel of water from the well to her house. But I have spoken very seriously to Fung Yu.” “Fung Yu can go to blazes,” said Baltazar. Quong Ho smiled. “I alone could give evidence that would condemn him to a perpetuity of punishment.” “So could I,” cried Baltazar. “Graft! If Tammany Hall really wanted to know how to do things, it ought to sit like a little child at the feet of a high-class Mandarin’s head-gardener. Fung Yu’s the real thing.” “He is a corrupt personality,” said Quong Ho. “Therefore,” replied Baltazar, “he is not the kind of person with whom an honourable man should seek alliance. As to the lady, her young affections are obviously unblighted, and very possibly by this time she is married and the mother of twins. My advice is to dismiss Fung Yu and his flower-like yet cabbage-ignorant daughter forever from your mind.” “I shall follow your gracious counsel,” replied Quong Ho. And the intimate conversation ended.