There was nothing immature about him, although he was but twenty eight years of age. Clarence Burgh was tall, thin, dark and had the appearance of a swashbuckler as he swaggered into the room. His black eyes snapped with an unholy light and his speech smacked too much of the Lands at the Back of Beyond, where he had passed the most part of his life. He was an expert rider, and daily rode a bucking squealing, kicking stallion up and down the road, or took long gallops into the country to reduce the fire of the unruly beast. Burgh was bad all through, daring, free, bold, and had a good deal of the untamed savage about him; but he was emphatically a man, and it was this virile atmosphere about him, which caused his withered aunt to adore him. And indeed Miss Wharf admired him also, as did many of the women in Marport. Clarence looked like a buccaneer who would carry a woman off, and knock her down if she objected to his love-making. Women like that sort of dominating lord of the world, and accordingly Mr. Burgh had nothing to complain of, so far as feminine admiration went, during his sojourn in Marport. But he had set his affections on Olivia, and hitherto she had shrunk from him. All the same, brute as he was, she admired him more than she did effeminate Chris Walker, who smacked of the city and of a feather-bed-four-meals-a-day existence. "Oh," squeaked Miss Pewsey, flying to the hero and clasping him round the neck, "how very, very sweet of you to come." "Hadn't anything else to do," said Clarence gracefully, casting himself into a chair. All his movements were graceful like those of a panther. "How are you Miss Wharf--Miss Rayner--Lady Jabe. I guess you all look like a garden of spring flowers this day." "But flowers we may not pluck," sighed Chris prettily. Burgh looked at him with contempt. "I reckon a man can pick what he has a mind to," said he drily, and then shifted his gaze to see how Olivia took this speech. To his secret annoyance, she did not let on she heard him. "Will you have some tea, Mr. Burgh," asked Miss Wharf. "Thanks. It seems to be the sort of thing one must drink here." "You drank it in China didn't you?" asked Lady Jabe. Burgh turned quickly. "Who told you I had been in China?" he asked. "My nephew Chris. He heard you talking Chinese to someone." The dark young man looked distinctly annoyed. "When was that?" he asked Chris. "Two weeks ago," replied the other, "you were standing at the corner of the Mansion House talking to a Chinaman. I only caught a word or two in passing." "And I guess you didn't understand," said Clarence derisively. "There you are wrong. I am in a Chinese firm, and know the language. As a matter of fact I write their foreign letters for them."