It required weeks for Stanley to recover all his memories.  It was a new world; Jeanne the one connecting link between the present and that still half-shadowy past from which he had been cast by some unceremonial jest of Fate into a strange existence.  From the witless, nameless unit of a whaler’s crew he had at last arisen to a fresh identity.  Frank Starbird, they christened him, he knew not why.  And when they found that he had clerical attainments, the captain, who was really a decent fellow, had befriended him; found him a berth in a store at Sitka....  Since then he had roamed up and down the world, mostly as purser of ships, forever haunted by the memory of some previous identity he could not fathom.  He had been to Russia, India, Europe’s seaports, landing finally at Baltimore.  Thence some mastering impulse took him Westward.  And here he was again, Francisco Stanley.

It was difficult to realize that fifteen years had flown.  Jeanne seemed so little older.  But the tall young son was startling evidence of Time’s passage.  Stanley used to sit gazing at him silently during those first few days, as though trying to drink in the stupendous fact of his existence.  Old friends called to hear his adventures; he was given a dinner at the club where he learned, with some surprise, that he was not unfamous as an author.  Jeanne had finished his book and found a publisher.  Between the advertisement of his mysterious disappearance and its real merits, the volume had a vogue.

Robert had married Maizie after her mother’s death.  They lived in the Windham house in Old South Park, for Benito and Alice had never returned from the East.  Po Lun and Hang Far had gone to China.

Slowly life resumed its formed status for Francisco.

CHAPTER LXXIV

THE “REFORMER”

Francisco loved to wander round the town, explore its nooks and corners and make himself, for the time being, a part of his surroundings.  A smattering of European languages aided him in this.  He rubbed elbows with coatless workmen in French, Swiss, Spanish and Italian “pensions,” sitting at long tables and breaking black bread into red wine.  He drank black coffee and ate cloying sweetmeats in Greek or Turkish cafes; hobnobbed with Sicilian fishermen, helping them to dry their nets and sometimes accompanying them in their feluccas into rough seas beyond the Heads.  Now and then he invaded Chinatown and ate in their underground restaurants, disdaining the “chop suey” and sweets invariably served to tourists for the more palatable and engaging viands he had learned to like and name in Shanghai and Canton.  Fortunately, he could afford to indulge his bent, for the value of his inheritance had increased extraordinarily in the past decade.  Stanley’s income was more than sufficient to insure a life of leisure.

* * * * *