"God knows," I said, "I'm not worth a single glance of her sweet eyes, but somehow or other she loves me, though she wouldn't fly with me when I suggested it."
"She has some decent feeling left," he answered, with a dry chuckle. "Well, I overheard everything that passed in that little room and I must say I rather appreciate the way in which you behaved. You are a rapid thinker, Sir Thomas. What suggests itself to you as the next move in our relations?"
"Quite obvious, sir. You give your consent to my engagement with your daughter. You please her, you bind me to your interests by hoops of steel—though as a matter of fact I'm bound already—and you add a not invaluable auxiliary to your staff."
"Very well," he said, perfectly calmly, and held out his hand. "Now come and have some supper and tell me all you know."
Then that astonishing man thrust his arm through mine and led me down the great library.
"What a marvelous intellect that fellow Pu-Yi has," he said confidentially. "He saw the situation in all its bearings, from all sides at once, and made an instant decision. I'll tell you now, Kirby, that he actually predicted every detail of what has just come to pass. He told me that he owed you his life and was perfectly ready to die for you, as of course for me and my daughter, but that it had occurred to him that his living for all three of us might be by far the wisest attitude to adopt under the circumstances. I quite agree with him."
Then again came the little dry, strange chuckle.
"But no more peddling poppy-juice to my Chinese, my boy. It plays the devil with their nerves in the end!"