“What right have you got saying things like that? What do you mean?”
“I have really said nothing as yet.”
Kane, seeming bewildered, allowed the door to swing inward and himself stepped back. The big mate came stooping within.
“Your note has been returned,” he said shortly; and gave him the paper.
Kane accepted it, stared down at it, then sank back on the couch.
“What's this to you!” he managed to cry. “What right.... what do you mean, saying I wrote this?”
“Because you did. You sent it back by the little girl.”
“Well, what if I did! What right—”
“I am here at the request of his excellency, the viceroy of Nanking. You have been annoying his daughter. The fact that she chooses, while in her father's household, to wear the Manchu dress, does not justify you in treating her otherwise than as a lady. Perhaps I can't expect you to understand that his exellency is one of the greatest statesmen alive to-day. Nor that this young lady was educated in America, knows the capitals of Europe better, doubtless, than yourself, and is a princess by birth. She went to school in England and to college in Massachusetts. Take my advice, and try no more of this sort of thing.”
The boy was staring at him now, wholly bewildered. “Well,” he began stumblingly, “perhaps I have been a little on the loose. But what of it! A fellow has to have some fun, doesn't he?”