“I would live as you live.  Thy ways are my ways, and our ways be one.  My husband is Canim, the Canoe, and he is big and strange, and I am afraid.  His trail is all the world and never ends, and I am weary.  My mother was like you, and her hair was as thine, and her eyes.  And life was soft to me then, and the sun warm.”

She knelt humbly, and bent her head at Mrs. Van Wyck’s feet.  But Mrs. Van Wyck drew away, frightened at her vehemence.

Li Wan stood up, panting for speech.  Her dumb lips could not articulate her overmastering consciousness of kind.

“Trade? you trade?” Mrs. Van Wyck questioned, slipping, after the fashion of the superior peoples, into pigeon tongue.

She touched Li Wan’s ragged skins to indicate her choice, and poured several hundreds of gold into the blower.  She stirred the dust about and trickled its yellow lustre temptingly through her fingers.  But Li Wan saw only the fingers, milk-white and shapely, tapering daintily to the rosy, jewel-like nails.  She placed her own hand alongside, all work-worn and calloused, and wept.

Mrs. Van Wyck misunderstood.  “Gold,” she encouraged.  “Good gold!  You trade?  You changee for changee?” And she laid her hand again on Li Wan’s skin garments.

“How much?  You sell?  How much?” she persisted, running her hand against the way of the hair so that she might make sure of the sinew-thread seam.

But Li Wan was deaf as well, and the woman’s speech was without significance.  Dismay at her failure sat upon her.  How could she identify herself with these women?  For she knew they were of the one breed, blood-sisters among men and the women of men.  Her eyes roved wildly about the interior, taking in the soft draperies hanging around, the feminine garments, the oval mirror, and the dainty toilet accessories beneath.  And the things haunted her, for she had seen like things before; and as she looked at them her lips involuntarily formed sounds which her throat trembled to utter.  Then a thought flashed upon her, and she steadied herself.  She must be calm.  She must control herself, for there must be no misunderstanding this time, or else,—­and she shook with a storm of suppressed tears and steadied herself again.

She put her hand on the table. “Table,” she clearly and distinctly enunciated. “Table,” she repeated.

She looked at Mrs. Van Wyck, who nodded approbation.  Li Wan exulted, but brought her will to bear and held herself steady. “Stove” she went on. “Stove.”

And at every nod of Mrs. Van Wyck, Li Wan’s excitement mounted.  Now stumbling and halting, and again in feverish haste, as the recrudescence of forgotten words was fast or slow, she moved about the cabin, naming article after article.  And when she paused finally, it was in triumph, with body erect and head thrown back, expectant, waiting.

“Cat,” Mrs. Van Wyck, laughing, spelled out in kindergarten fashion.  “I—­see—­the—­cat—­catch—­the—­rat.”