Sometimes I think of troubles that may come to her in case she should meet with no such good fortune; and then my head becomes hot and I have to clench my hands and walk out in the air. There will be men of course—and ten long days of that train! Certain ugly phrases of Sir Robert's float to the surface of my thoughts and stay there to irritate me. I can't help dwelling a little on the sinister code of the white men who travel in the East.
But it is no good thinking of these things. Heloise says they are only the chances of life, and that we have to take those. “And Anthony,” she added to-day, “they can annoy me, but they can't hurt me—they can't make any difference.”
April 19th. Noon.
I SENT one of my letters of introduction to the American Minister to-day, by coolie.
He replied at once, with a cordial chit asking me to tea this afternoon.
I find that Hindmann knows him. and has spoken of me to him. It turns out that the Minister regards himself as something of an amateur in Chinese music. He knew my name.
“He showed me a big book,” said Hindmann, in telling me about it, last night. “Had a lot of queer music scales in it, and pictures of instruments. He said it was the standard authority on the subject.”
“What book?” I asked him.