Now and then he found that the stride he had acquired from such grinding observation tired him. Not for worlds would he have shortened his step to that padding, sinuous motion so distinctly Chinese.
He had grown to hate all things Chinese. In the short time in which he had been in New York he had discarded with the utmost patience the traits which are so persistently associated with the Chinaman. To be thought American; to have the freedom, the quick appreciation of life that belongs to the Occident, that had been the goal toward which he had striven; the goal he prided himself he had almost reached.
Suddenly he became aware of a hand on his arm.
In the dark he felt the pressure of bony fingers against his flesh.
Looking down he saw that a woman had crept up from behind him; that she had put out her hand in an effort to detain him.
It was in the center of a block. The thick blackness that hung loosely, an opaque veil all about him, was almost impenetrable. Yet as he looked at her with his small, piercing eyes, he thought he saw her lips moving in crimsoned stains splashed against the whiteness of her face.
"What is it?" He asked.
He saw her raise her eyelids at his question. He found himself gazing into her eyes; eyes that were twin balls of fire left to burn in a place that had been devastated by flames.
"It's hot;—ain't it?"
He stood silent for a moment trying to realize that the woman had every right to be there; trying to understand with an even greater endeavor that she was in reality a flesh and blood woman, and not some mysteriously incarnate soul crawling to his side out of the sinister night.