Again he halted. Then he continued, just a little diffidently, a little self-consciously, as, Mongol to the core, he considered the voicing of intimate sentiments between husband and wife slightly indelicate--“such as our love, Moon-beam--burned deep and strong and black by a thousand and ten thousand days of mutual knowledge--” She looked at him. She rose. She put her arms about him. * * * * * They were rather ludicrous, those two. Yellow, fat, crinkled, old, decidedly ugly. Standing there, holding each other close, in the center of the plain little room. With the garish lights of Pell Street winking through the well-washed window-curtains, the symphony of Pell Street skirling in with a belching, tawdry chorus; a street organ trailing a brassy, syncopated jazz; the hectic splutter and hiss of a popcorn-man’s cart; some thick, passionate words flung up from a shadow-blotched postern, then dropping into the gutter: “Gee, kid, I’m sure nuts about you!” “G’wan, yer big slob, tell it t’the marines--” * * * * * Yes. Ludicrous, that scene. And ludicrous, perhaps, the Moon-beam’s words, in guttural, staccato Chinese, “Great One! Truly, truly, all the real world is enclosed for me in your heart!” He looked at her from beneath heavy, opium-reddened eyelids. “Moon-beam,” he said, “once you could have been a Manchu’s bride.” She gave a quaint, giggling, girlish, high-pitched little laugh. “Once,” she replied, “the ass went seeking for horns--and lost its ears.” She patted his cheeks. “I am a coolie’s fat old woman, Great One! An old coolie’s fat, useless old woman--” “Little Moon-beam,” he whispered, “little, little Moon-beam--” It was the voice of forty years ago, stammering, passionate, tender. He held her very close. Then, unhurriedly, he released her. Unhurriedly, he left the room, walked down the stairs and over to the joss temple. There--his tongue in his cheek, his mind smiling at his soul--he went through a certain intricate ritual, with shreds of scarlet paper, and incense sticks, and pieces of peach-wood especially dreaded by ghosts. Yu Ch’ang, the priest, watched him, and--since even holy men must eat and drink--suggested that, perhaps, the other might like sacerdotal intercession with the _Shang Ti_, the Supreme Ruler of Heaven. Ng Ch’u laughed. “I have always avoided middlemen,” he said. “That’s how I made my fortune. Shall I then offend the deity by talking through a priest’s greedy lips?” And he left the joss temple, and walked out into the street.