“I have no card,” he said. “I am Captain Ted Talham of the Victorian Mounted Infantry, of the Bechuanaland Mounted Police, of the Imperial Bushmen, and I am, in addition, a general in the army of the Dowager Empress of China, a mandarin of the Fourth Class, and a wearer of the Sun of Heaven and the Imperial Dragon Orders.” He recited this with all gravity. There was no glint of humour in his eyes. The girl checked her smile when she realised how serious this good-looking man was. There was pride in the recital of his dignities: it was a very important matter that he should be Captain of Irregular Horse, and as tremendous a happening that he should wear the decorations of the Manchu dynasty. She held out her hand. “I am sure my mother will be glad to meet you,” she said, “and as for myself I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you should have been so providentially at hand this afternoon.” He bowed, a ceremonious and correct little bow. “That is the luck of the game,” he said. There was an awkward pause. He was so evidently trying to say something more. “I think it is right, and it is my duty,” he said at last, “to point out to you the very significant fact that so far I have not offered you my address. This,” he went on oracularly, “is all the more significant and alarming when I tell you that the intrinsic value of the bangle”--he tapped his pocket--“is anything from fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred pounds.” “Impossible!” said the startled girl. It was altogether an amazing afternoon. He nodded. “Possibly the latter figure,” he said. “Let the fact sink into your mind, and add to it the alarming intelligence that I have no address, and I have no address because I have exactly three yen in unchangeable Chinese silver between myself and the ravening world.” A wave of pity surged over the girl, and there were tears in her eyes--tears that sprang most unexpectedly from unsuspected wells of sympathy. She fumbled in her bag, but he stopped her. “I beg of you,” he said reproachfully. “If you can’t trust me with two thousand pounds’ worth of jade, believe me, I can trust you with my secret, and a secret is only existent just so long as either of the two parties affected do nothing overtly or covertly to destroy the basic foundation upon which it rests. My secret is momentary penury--remove that and the secret ceases to be.” He would have said more, but checked himself. “In fact,” he concluded, “if you offer me money, I shall offer you your jade bangle, and there will be the end of the matter.” She was laughing now--her eyes danced with merriment. There was something amusing in the situation. This seedy gentleman with his unchangeable yen, his problematical dinner and bed, with two thousand pounds in his inside pocket, appealed to her sense of the grotesque. If young De Costa knew! Young change-counting, bill-checking, tipless De Costa, who had given her two thousand pounds in the innocence of his heart.