At the races they found an absorbing bond of interest. The love of horse-flesh was ingrained in both, and the merits of the various ponies provoked endless discussion. Lights were beginning to twinkle on the bund when they drove back to the hotel.
"Where shall we go to-night!" asked Percival, as eager at the end of this eight hours' tête-à-tête as he had been at the start.
"To the ball, of course," said Bobby. "The hotel is giving it in honor of the Saluria."
"Heavens! what a bore! Can't we dodge it?"
"You can if you want to. Andy'll take me. He's just waiting to see if you renig."
"Renig?" repeated Percival.
"Yes," said Bobby—"fluke, back out; you know what I mean."
That settled it with Percival. Five minutes before the hour appointed he was waiting impatiently in one of the small reception-rooms to conduct Miss Boynton to that most abhorred of all functions, a public ball. What possible pleasure he was going to get out of standing against the wall and watching her dance with other men he could not conceive. He assured himself that he was acting like a fool, and that if he kept on at the pace he was going, Heaven only knew what folly he might commit in the four days that must pass before he reached Hong-Kong.
Hong-Kong! The word had but one association for him. It was the home of his eldest and most conservative sister, a lady of uncompromising social standards, who recognized only two circles of society, the one over which her mother presided in London, and the smaller one over which she reigned as the wife of the British diplomatic official in the land of her adoption.
At the mere thought of presenting Bobby to this paragon of social perfection, Percival shuddered. He could imagine Sister Cordelia's pitiless survey of the girl through her lorgnette, the lifting of her brows over some mortal sin against taste or some deadly transgression in her manner of speech. Of course, he assured himself it would never do; the idea of bringing them together was wholly preposterous. And yet—