“Well, let us say twenty per cent., Miss Bluett.”

“Be it so, Mr. Ephrinell.”

“But that is a good deal for you!” whispered Caterna in my ear.

The marriage for a moment was in check for five per cent.!

But all is arranged.  The interests of the two houses have been safeguarded.  The Reverend Nathaniel Morse repeats the question.

A dry “yes” from Horatia Bluett, a short “yes” from Fulk Ephrinell, and the two are declared to be united in the bonds of matrimony.

The deed is then signed, first by them, then by the witnesses, then by Faruskiar, and the other signatures follow.  At length the clergyman adds his name and flourish, and that closes the series of formalities according to rule.

“There they are, riveted for life,” said the actor to me, with a little lift of his shoulder.

“For life—­like two bullfinches,” said the actress, who had not forgotten that these birds are noted for the fidelity of their armours.

“In China,” said Pan-Chao, “it is not the bullfinch but the mandarin duck that symbolizes fidelity in marriage.”

“Ducks or bullfinches, it is all one,” said Caterna philosophically.

The ceremony is over.  We compliment the newly married pair.  We return to our occupation, Ephrinell to his accounts, Mrs. Ephrinell to her work.  Nothing is changed in the train.  There are only two more married people.

Major Noltitz, Pan-Chao and I go out and smoke on one of the platforms, leaving to their preparations the Caternas, who seem to be having a sort of rehearsal in their corner.  Probably it is the surprise for the evening.

There is not much variety in the landscape.  All along is this monotonous desert of Gobi with the heights of the Humboldt mountains on the right reaching on to the ranges of Nan Chan.  The stations are few and far between, and consist merely of an agglomeration of huts, with the signal cabin standing up among them like a monument.  Here the tender fills up with water and coal.  Beyond the Kara Nor, where a few towns appear, the approach to China Proper, populous and laborious, becomes more evident.

This part of the desert of Gobi has little resemblance to the regions of Eastern Turkestan we crossed on leaving Kachgar.  These regions are as new to Pan-Chao and Doctor Tio-King as to us Europeans.

I should say that Faruskiar no longer disdains to mingle in our conversation.  He is a charming man, well informed and witty, with whom I shall become better acquainted when we reach Pekin.  He has already invited me to visit him at his yamen, and I will then have an opportunity of putting him to the question—­that is, to the interview.  He has traveled a good deal, and seems to have an especially good opinion of French journalists.  He will not refuse to subscribe to the Twentieth Century. I am sure—­Paris, 48 francs, Departments, 56, Foreign, 76.