[Illustration:  TING’RH, OR CHINESE PAVILION, IN SIR ROBERT HART’S GARDEN, PEKING.]

Anxiety could never have driven him away; it took insomnia to make him apply for the leave he so greatly needed.  His brain, like Gladstone’s, was overtaxed; the problems which he had so long considered gave him no rest, and by night as well as by day his too active mind thought and planned and considered.  Rest was therefore imperative, and fortunately his leave was granted.  At the same time the Empress-Dowager commanded him to an Audience.  It was not the first by any means, as he had for the last few years always gone to the Palace at the Chinese New Year.  But as it was typical of the others, a few words of description may not come amiss.  He was off early in the morning as usual, surrounded by Palace officials mounted on shaggy ponies who trotted beside his sedan chair while their riders with shrieks and yells cleared a way for the cavalcade.  The police guards popped out of their stations to salute him—­I can tell you that hour’s journey across the city was something in the nature of a triumphal progress, what with traffic airily waved aside and sentries and soldier-police presenting arms!  At the Palace gates he alighted, and was met by other officials, bigger and grander, and conducted to the Hall of Audience.  A considerable distance still remained to be covered; courtyard after courtyard had to be traversed and an artificial lake crossed in a barge before the Hall itself was reached and—­an official having gone ahead and peeped in and announced his presence informally—­he was shown into the presence of Their Majesties.  Side by side on a little raised platform sat the Emperor and the Empress-Dowager, each with a table before them.  He might have noticed that there were flowers on the Empress’s table and none on the Emperor’s, but that otherwise the room was not particularly large or imposing and very bare—­without chairs, without cupboards, without ornamentation of any kind except the beautiful painting on the ceiling and the fine woodcarving on the long doors.  But he had a speech to make—­absorbing occupation—­and as soon as it was over the Empress-Dowager was talking to him quite simply about his travels and asking questions about London.  She shyly confessed that since her one and only train journey—­from Si-an in 1900—­she had conceived a great liking for travel and enjoyed seeing strange sights.  Then she wished him a happy voyage and concluded by remarking:  “We have chosen to give you some little keepsakes,” using the word meaning a “personal souvenir” rather than a formal and perfunctory “present.”  It was a moment of natural excitement, and the I.G., dumb with emotion, received the intimation in unflattering silence.  “Thank,” said the Minister who presented him, in agonized tones; and while he stammered out a simple “Thank you,” devoid of any conventional flourishes, the Minister went down on his knees and put his gratitude prettily.  The interview was then closed; Emperor and Empress both assumed a Buddha-like impassivity of expression and allowed the I.G. to back just as if they were entirely oblivious of his presence.  Such is the Chinese method of differentiating between the friend and the sovereign.