"Pardon me, but may I ask you a question?"

Jane dropped the fur collaret in her confusion. They both stooped for it,
and collided gently; but in rising the man glimpsed the string of glass
beads.

"Thank you," said Jane, as she received the collaret. "What is it you wish
to ask of me?"

"The name of the man you were with."

"Dennison; his own and yours--probably," she said with spirit, for she
took sides in that moment, and was positive that the blame for the
estrangement lay with the father. The level, unagitated voice irritated
her; she resented it. He wasn't human!

"My name is Cleigh--Anthony Cleigh. Thank you."

Cleigh bowed politely and moved away. Behind that calm, impenetrable mask,
however, was turmoil, kaleidoscopic, whirling too quickly for the brain to
grasp or hold definite shapes. The boy here! And the girl with those beads
round her throat! For the subsidence of this turmoil it was needful to
have space; so Cleigh strode out of the lobby into the fading day, made
his way across the bridge, and sought the Bund. He forgot all about his
appointment with Cunningham.

He lit a cigar and walked on and on, oblivious of the cries of the
'ricksha boys, importunate beggars, the human currents that broke and
flowed each side of him. The boy here in Shanghai! And that girl with
those beads round her throat! It was as though his head had become a
tom-tom in the hands of fate. The drumming made it impossible to think
clearly. It was the springing up of the electric lights that brought him
back to actualities. He looked at his watch.