Suzee sighed heavily, swaying her pliable body only a very little way from me.

“It may be—­a little” she admitted; “but it’s not like the pictures.”

“Oh!  It’s not so bad—­not so wicked?” I asked mockingly.

“Oh no, not nearly,” she returned decisively.

“Well,” I answered, “many people would think it much worse.  Those girls who have let me draw them would not let me kiss them—­some of them,” I added.  “So, you see, it’s a matter of opinion and idea.  Now, will you say why the picture is so much worse than a kiss?”

“A kiss,” murmured Suzee, “is just between two people.  It is done, and no one knows.  It is gone.”  She spread out her hands and waved them in the air with an expressive gesture.  “Those things remain a monument of shame for ever and ever.”

I laughed.  I was beginning to see there was not much chance of a picture, but other prospects seemed fair.  In life one must always take exactly what it offers, and neither refuse its goods nor ask for more, either in addition or exchange.  Sitka would give me something, but perhaps not a picture as I had hoped.

I looked at her in silence for some seconds, musing on her curious beauty.

“I shall call you ‘Sitkar-i-buccheesh,’” I said after a minute.

Suzee looked frightened and made a rapid pass over her head.

“What is that?” she asked.  “It sounds a devil’s name.”

“It only means the gift of Sitka,” I answered.  “This city has given you to me, has it not? or it will,” I added in a lower tone.

I put my arm round her again, and she leant towards me as a flower swayed by the breeze, her head drooped and rested against my shoulder.

“If it were the name of a devil,” I said laughing, “it would suit you.  I believe you are an awful little devil.”

“All women are devils,” returned Suzee placidly.

I did not answer, but Viola’s face swam suddenly before my vision—­a face all white and gold and rose and with eyes of celestial blue.

“What would your husband say to all this?” I asked jestingly.

“He will never know.  I tell him quite different.  He believes everything I say.”

Involuntarily I felt a little chill of disgust pass through me.  Deceit of any kind specially repels me, and deceit towards some one trusting, confident, is the worst of all.

Perhaps she read my thoughts instinctively, for she said next, in a pleading note, to enlist my sympathies: 

“He is very, very cruel, he beats me all the time.”

I looked down at her as she lay in the cradle of my arm, a little sceptical.

From what I knew of the Chinese character it did not seem at all likely that Hop Lee did beat his wife; moreover, the delicate, fragile, untouched beauty of the girl did not allow one to imagine she had suffered, or could suffer much violence.

Again she seemed to feel my doubt of her, for she pushed up suddenly her sleeve with some trouble from one velvet-skinned arm and pushed it up before my eyes.  There was a deep dull crimson mark upon it the size of a half-crown.