"Yes—" "Romney—no one is watching. I would not care if they were—put your head a moment on my breast.... Ah, and now upon my knee ... dear boy ... Romney, I am blind. I almost hate to go. Don’t let me stay, will you? ... Ah, kiss me—once ... lips ... ice cold ... once? It isn’t true! It’s just passion, Romney! I hate myself. Don’t let me stay to-night ... once—" They were standing. She had not spoken for long. The launch was waiting. "I want something that you have on—something of yours," he managed to say steadily. She unfastened her cloak, gave it to him to hold—took off the waist she wore—a bit of gold-rose chiffon that he could cover in his palm. Then she put on her cloak again. He helped her into the launch. Her bowed head turned to him a moment, and she covered her eyes. The launch sputtered away. Romney went back to the seat near the bamboo thicket. The scent of roses wavered past, and the music of the _vina_ came in to him. Romney drank. Once he raised his head. It was her steamer passing down the river. Hours afterwards he was drinking there alone.... Toward morning Longstruth himself came and sat down, but the American did not speak. Neither was he drunk in the least. *PART ONE: THE GREAT DRIFT* *SUNDRY ADVENTURES* *1* The night was starless, windless. The funnels of the _John Dividend_, a tramp steamer, lying in the yellow water off Woosung, were smearing the deck; the cinders crunched under the boots of the solitary forward watch. This was a white man who leaned over the railing, and reflected in the dull fashion of a bruised mind, that he would have to scrub down that deck at dawn. A live cinder dropped on the back of his neck. He brushed it away stolidly without haste. The action was that of one so accustomed to suffering that the finer sense was deadened to ordinary pangs. The tall attenuated figure was clad in loose and dirty garments of cotton. One of his reckless eyes a fist had rimmed with black. In some respects this was the most miserable man that ever swabbed the decks of the _John Dividend_. He had been given a berth without undue questioning while the ship lay in Manila harbour; had spent eleven days and nights on board the tramp, learning what the deeper hell is like. He had been refused the privilege of going ashore at Woosung, had been abused by the captain and the crew, beaten by the second mate and bitten by the engineer’s dog. Besides he had gotten onto McLean’s books to the extent of twenty-five dollars.