John could not answer.
Brachey compressed his lips; stood there, knocking his pipe against the door-post. Then, finally, he put on overcoat and rubber overshoes, took one of the umbrellas, and set forth.
3
They walked a long way through twisting, shadowy streets, first a soldier with the boy from the inn, then Brachey under his umbrella, then John under another, then the second soldier. Dim figures finished past them. Once the quaint waihng of stringed instruments floated out over a compound wall. They passed through a dark tunnel that must have been one of the city gates; then on through other streets.
They stopped at a gate house. A door opened, and yellow lamplight fell warmly across the way. Brachey found himself stepping up into a structure that was and yet was not Chinese. A smiling old gate-keeper received him with striking courtesy, and, to his surprise, in English.
“Will you come with me, sir?”
John and the soldiers waited in the gate house.
Brachey followed the old man across a paved court. His pulse quickened. Where were they bringing him?
Through a window he saw a white woman sitting at a desk, under an American lamp.
He mounted stone steps, left his coat and hat in a homelike front hall. The servant led the way up a flight of carpeted stairs.