This new attitude was to bring, later in the evening, confidences from the father.
“It's been an interesting journey for me, Rocky.” Thoughtfully Dawley Kane smoked his Manila cigar.
“It's enabled me to understand somewhat the delicate international situation out here. I couldn't see why our agents weren't accomplishing more. The trouble is, of course, that every square foot of China's staked out by the European nations. If you don't believe that, just get a concession from the Chinese Government—for a big job—water power development, mining, railway building, or an industrial monopoly—that part of it isn't so hard—and then try to carry it through. You'd find out fast enough who are the real owners of China. And those owners would never let you start. Great Britain controls this great empire of the Yangtze Valley as completely as she controls India. France owns the south—Russia the northwest and the north—Japan, from Korea and Lower Manchuria is penetrating the northwest, too; they're bound, the Japanese, to tip Russia out one of these days, and they're very clever and patient about slipping into the British regions. They've got the Germans to contend with, too, in the Kiochow region. But someday—either in the event of the final break-up of China or in the event of the European nations coming to an out-and-out squabble (which is almost a certainty, at that) Japan will be found to have pulled off most of the big prizes for herself. We'll have to fight Japan someday, I suppose—over the control of the Pacific—but in the meantime, those little people are the best bet. They know the East as the rest of us don't, they're clever, and their diplomats aren't hampered by the sort of half-enlightened public opinion that's always tripping us up in the West—sentimental idealism, that sort of thing—and they control their press infinitely better than we do. They've got everything, the Japanese, except money. And we've got the money. It'll be just a question of security, that's all; and watching them pretty closely. I've made up my mind to play it that way.... A survey of the actual conditions out here makes our American diplomacy look pretty naive. We talk idealism—open door and all—while all the rest of them are moving in and setting up shop and getting the money.”
Later, in Dawley Kane's spacious suite overlooking the park-like street where the colored lanterns of the rickshaws glowed pleasantly under the trees, the father said, laying a hand affectionately on the boy's shoulder:
“I can't tell you how happy you've made me, Rocky. It looks as if you'd turned your corner. Just don't go in for too much thinking about what you've been through. There's nothing in remorse. As a matter of fact, a little rough experience is a good thing for a boy. After you get your balance you'll be all the closer to life for it.... Go ahead with your college plans, get your degree, and then after a year or two in the New York office I'll bring you out here. We shall be playing for big stakes. And we shall need good men.... That's the whole problem, really—the men. I had my eyes on this man Doane, but he turned out to be only a sentimentalist after all.”
It was the hopelessness of it that drove Rocky out—after a respectful good night—and over to the revolutionary headquarters. He knew that Mr. Doane worked most of the night; and took what sleep he got on a cot there.
CHAPTER XV—IN A COURTYARD
HE sent in his name, and waited for an hour in an outer office. For even at this late hour in the evening headquarters was a busy place. Chinese gentlemen crowded in and out, dressed, to a man, in the frock coats and the flapping black trousers they didn't know how to wear. High officers slipped quietly in and out—in khaki, with the white brassard of the Revolution on their left arms; sometimes with merely a handkerchief tied there Orderlies and messengers came and went. And clerks of untiring patience sat at desks.