“That,” she mused, “is what I sometimes worry about. You know, I love America. I have foun' happiness there. I love the books an' the colleges and the freedom an' all the goo' times. But it is true, I think—money is God in America. Pipple don' like to have you say it, of course. But I'm afraid it is true. Ever'-thing has to come to money—the gover'men', the churches, ever'thing. I have seen that. That is the hard side of America. I don' like that so well.” Finally—coming down, helplessly, on the personal, yet with a courageous light in his eyes—he said: “I do want you to know this—Hui. You won't mind my speaking of my love for you—”
Her hand moved a very little way upward. “Please! I can't help that. It's my life now. I'm full of you. And it has changed me. I'm—I'm going back.... I'm going at things differently. I want you to know that. Because if I hadn't met you it couldn't possibly have happened. And if I hadn't—well, learned what it means to love a wonderful girl like you. I want you to know how big the change is that you've made.”
“Rocky,” she said gently—“will you do something for me?” He waited...."I wan' you to go back to college.”
“I've already made up my mind to that,” he replied, more quietly. “It's the job for me now. It's the next thing.”
“I'm glad,” said she. “An' I'd love it if you'd write to me sometimes.”
He inclined his head.
Then, for a moment, his old turbulent inner self unexpectedly (even to himself), lifted its head.
“I tried to see Mr. Doane—that is, I thought perhaps I ought to tell him that I was coming out here.”
She seemed slightly puzzled at this. Her lips framed questioningly the words: “Tell him?”
“I—I perhaps can't say much—but I'm sure you and he will be happy. I—oh, he's a big man. He's terribly busy now, of course—you know what he's doing—at Wu Ting Fang's headquarters?”