CHAPTER XVII
“Who is your guest?” Julie demanded, as the carriage Barry had sent after her drew up at the door of the Archibispo Street house, where he stood waiting for her.
“It wasn’t he I had in mind so much as myself,” he said gravely, assisting her out of the vehicle.
“Strictly speaking,” he added, “the person I sent for you to meet is a king.”
“A king!” cried Julie with delight. “Where did you get him?”
“He’s the white rajah of an island realm to the south—an Englishman, and a fine chap. He’s come to return a visit I paid him, and to find out what we Americans are up to. Ellis snatched him away as soon as she found out that he was a nobleman in England as well as a king in the East Indies. That gave me the chance I wanted to have a talk with you.”
Delphine, his corsair hair on end, came to greet Julie, at the top of the stairs, and to announce that luncheon was served.
“There’s to be just you and I,” Barry said, “and the wife of a Spanish lawyer friend of mine, who lives across the way and who blessedly doesn’t understand a word of English. Later Rajah Payne, and some people who are dropping in to meet him, will come in for tea.”
They seated themselves at a small table near windows filled with waving ferns. When Señora Taliaferro, who was enamored of American cooking, had become engrossed with the dishes served her, Barry leaned across to Julie and said abruptly:
“Sun Yat Sen has gone! He is about to start on a long march across China—on foot through Manchuria and Mongolia, preaching the gospel of freedom—and revolt. He begged me to go with him.”