"You are twenty-three, educated, good-looking, with the best of life before you—but dependent on the niggardly charity of a rich brother for the very bread you eat. Even here, on this skirt of the world where pleasures are cheap, it is only by dint of debt that you keep your head above water. Now your sedate relative has come to sit in judgment on your past year. What does he care for your private tastes? What will he do when he hears of the geisha suppers and the bar-chits at the Club and the roulette table at the bungalow? Increase that generous stipend of yours? I fancy not."
Phil lit a cigar with a hand that shook. The doctor's contemptuous words had roused a tingling anger that raced with the alcohol in his blood. He, with the tastes of a gentleman, as poor as a temple-rat, while his brother sailed around the globe in his steam-yacht! He saw his allowance cut off—saw himself driven to the cheap expedients of the Bund beach-comber, cringing for a yen from men who had won his hundreds at the Roost—or perhaps sitting on an under-clerk's stool in some Settlement counting-house, shabby-genteel, adding figures from eight in the morning to five at night. No more moon-light cherry-parties on the Sumida River, or plum-blossom picnics, or high jinks in the Inland Sea. No more pony-races at Omori, or cat-boat sailing at Kamakura, or philandering at the Maple-Leaf Tea-House. No more laughing Japanese faces and tinted fingers—no more stolen kisses in bamboo lanes—no more Haru!
He struck the stand with his fist. "And if—I agree?" he said thickly. "What then?"
Bersonin leaned forward, his hands on the stand. It rocked under his weight. "I have talked of money. I will show you a quick way to gain it—not by years, but by days!—wealth such as you have never dreamed, enough to make your brother poor beside you! Not only money, but power and place and honors. Is the stake big enough to play for?"
Phil stared at him, fascinated. It was not madness back of those dappled, yellowish eyes. They were full of a knowledge, cold and measured and implacable.
"What do you—want me to do?" He almost gasped the words.
The expert looked him in the eye a full moment in silence, his fingers crawling and twitching. Then, with a quick, leopard-like movement, he went to the wall-safe, opened it and took out what seemed a square metal box. In its top was set an indicator, like the range-finder of a camera. Its very touch seemed to melt his icy control. His paleness flushed; his hand trembled as he set it upon the desk.
"Wait!" he said. "Wait!"
He looked swiftly about the room. His eye rested on the bamboo cage and a quick gleam shot across his face. He opened the wire door and the little bird hopped to his finger. He moved a metal pen-rack to the very center of the desk and perched the tiny creature on it. It burst into song, warbling full-throated, packed with melody. Bersonin set the metal case a little distance away and adjusted it with minutest care.
"Sing, Dick!" he cried loudly; "sing! sing!—"