But Romney could not sleep. It was not so easy and laughable as when the episode began. His thoughts turned to the walnut cabinet as the eye turns to fire in the night. He lay restless and wide-eyed in the dark. Presently the moon came in and gleamed upon the open door and upon the glasses and bottles on the table, bringing out inner fires from the multi-colored glass. He arose often for water. There was fever burning full-length. The novelty of keeping himself in hand left him and it became fight. The bars had long been down.... The long night crawled. He heard some English sailors pass through the street below. The Chinese city was full of sounds not to be designated—cries, gongs, the tapping of canes, sounds that the elemental traffic of the day had deluged, for he heard women’s voices and the voices of children. One does not hear these in the day-time. He relit the lamp at last, smoked and read, and when the activities of the night had at last died out, there was an hour of blackness and quiet that was like a jungle experience. He was full of fears, not at all the kind of fears that Romney knew when his mind was in order. Dawn came, and with it a soft breeze that stirred the wind-glasses in the garden below. It was a thirsty tinkle, a sound he had heard somewhere before and found hauntingly sweet. There was a touch of rose in the light, and the scent of rose came to him in the morning dusk, and rushed his thoughts far up the Yellow River.... Old days in the open swept back to mind with rugged value. He was on his feet. The night was gone. He could take a drink now without breaking his word, but the new strength tided him over that. A servant tapped at the inlaid door and asked if he would have anything. Yes, he would have coffee. He found the place of the fountain. The cool morning air came in as he bathed, and with the scent came back to him the sense of equilibrium that he had not known for many days, a suggestion of self-sanction, perfect but valid.... The coffee was served when he returned to the room. He asked if he might walk in the garden then and the servant tarried to show him the way. Three servants were standing at the street door in the dim-lit lower hall as Romney and his guide passed below. They were engaged in a more or less orderly passage of words. Suddenly a cry arose, and the three servants were seen to leap upon a man in European dress who seemed intent upon entering. Romney disdained more than a side glance at the encounter down the long dark hall, as he followed the footsteps of his diminutive but most engaging guide.