“Y-yes, I would like a book.” She held out a quarter. “Do you know China?”
“I was born there.” The man spoke in the steady, even tone of the white man who has lived long in strange lands. “Until six weeks ago I lived in China.”
“Then—then perhaps you can help me.”
“Gladly. How?”
“An—another time.” Once more Jeanne felt she had spoken too soon.
Without a backward look, she left the place to lose herself in the merry-mad throng that, whirling and swirling like autumn leaves caught in a gust of wind, revolved about the entrance to the million dollar Skyway.
CHAPTER V
A HEARSE IN THE MOONLIGHT
Petite Jeanne, too, seemed a bright autumn leaf as, dressed in a filmy orange-colored gown, she drifted down the broad paved walk.
Passing a great building that gleamed from within as if it were on fire, she marveled at the mystery of light.
“Why should I find myself intrigued by a mere Oriental dagger and one small Chinaman with long ears?” she asked herself, “when a thousand mysteries of science, chemistry, light, heat and sound lie all about me?”