As the moments passed the eyes of Mrs. Sin grew more and more glazed.  Her harsh voice became softened, and presently:  “Ah!” she whispered; “so you wait to smoke with me?”

Immobile she sat propped up amid the cushions, and only her full lips moved.

“Two pipes are nothing to Cy,” she murmured.  “He smokes five.  But you are not going to smoke?”

Again she paused, then: 

“Ah, my Lucy.  You smoke with me?” she whispered coaxingly.

Chandu had opened the poppy gates.  Mrs. Sin was conversing with her dead lover.

“Something has changed you,” she sighed.  “You are different—­lately.  You have lots of money now.  Your investments have been good.  You want to become—­respectable, eh?”

Slightly—­ever so slightly—­the red lips curled upwards.  No sound of life came from the woman lying white and still in the bed.  But through the partly open door crept snatches of Sin Sin Wa’s crooning melody.

“Yet once,” she murmured, “yet once I seemed beautiful to you, Lucy.  For La Belle Lola you forgot that English pride.”  She laughed softly.  “You forgot Sin Sin Wa.  If there had been no Lola you would never have escaped from Buenos Ayres with your life, my Lucy.  You forgot that English pride, and did not ask me where I got them from—­the ten thousand dollars to buy your ‘honor’ back.”

She became silent, as if listening to the dead man’s reply.  Finally: 

“No—­I do not reproach you, my dear,” she whispered.  “You have paid me back a thousand fold, and Sin Sin Wa, the old fox, grows rich and fat.  Today we hold the traffic in our hands, Lucy.  The old fox cares only for his money.  Before it is too late let us go—­you and I. Do you remember Havana, and the two months of heaven we spent there?  Oh, let us go back to Havana, Lucy.  Kazmah has made us rich.  Let Kazmah die. . . .  You smoke with me?”

Again she became silent, then: 

“Very likely,” she murmured; “very likely I know why you don’t smoke.  You have promised your pretty little friend that you will stay awake and see that nobody tries to cut her sweet white throat.”

She paused momentarily, then muttered something rapidly in Spanish, followed by a short, guttural phrase in Chinese.

“Why do you bring her to the house?” she whispered hoarsely.  “And you brought her to Kazmah’s.  Ah!  I see.  Now everybody says you are changed.  Yes.  She is a charming friend.”

The Buddha-like face became suddenly contorted, and as suddenly grew placid again.

“I know!  I know!” Mrs. Sin muttered harshly.  “Do you think I am blind!  If she had been like any of the others, do you suppose it would have mattered to me?  But you respect her—­you respect. . . .”  Her voice died away to an almost inaudible whisper:  “I don’t believe you.  You are telling me lies.  But you have always told me lies; one more does not matter, I suppose. . . .  How strong you are.  You have hurt my wrists.  You will smoke with me now?”