The girl stood and wondered.

“My lord thinks so much of a plaything?” she murmured.

Prince Shan frowned.  His finely shaped, silky eyebrows almost met.  She covered her eyes and drooped her head.

“We of the East,” he said, “although we are the mightier race, progress slowly, because the love of new things is not with us.  Something of western ways I have learned, and the love of woman.  It is not for a plaything I desire her whom we will not name.  She shall sit by my side and rule.  I shall wed her with my brain as with my body.  Our minds will move together.  We shall feel the same shivering pleasure when we rule the world with great thoughts as when our bodies touch.  I shall teach her to know her soul, even as my own has been revealed to me.”

“No woman is worthy of this, my lord,” the girl faltered.

He waved his hand and she stole away.  At the door he stopped her.

“Do you go to life or death, Nita?” he asked.

She looked at him with a great sorrow.

“I am a worthless thing,” she replied.  “I go where my lord’s words have sent me.”

Li Wen reappeared presently for an appointed audience.  He brought messages.

“Highness,” he announced, “there is a code dispatch here from Ki-Chou.  An American gained entrance to the City last week.  Yesterday he left by aeroplane for India.  He was overtaken and captured.  It is feared, however, that he has agents over the frontier, for no papers were found upon him.”

“It was a great achievement,” Prince Shan said thoughtfully.  “No other foreigner has ever passed into our secret city.  Is there word as to how he got there?”

“He came as a Russian artificer from that city in Russia of which we do not speak,” Li Wen replied.  “He brought letters, and his knowledge was great.”

“His name?” the Prince asked.

“Gilbert Jesson, Highness.  His passport and papers refer to Washington, but his message, if he sent one, is believed to have come to London.”

“The man must die,” the Prince said calmly.  “That, without doubt, he expects.  Yet the news is not serious.  My heart has spoken for peace, Li Wen.”

Li Wen bowed low.  His master watched him curiously.

“If I had asked it, Li Wen, where would your counsel have led?”

“Towards peace, Highness.  I do not trust Immelan.  It is not in such a manner that China’s Empire shall spread.  There are ancestors of mine who would turn in their graves to find China in league with a western Power.”

“You are a wise man, Li Wen,” his master declared.  “We hold the mastery of the world.  What shall we do with it?”

“The mightiest sword is that which enforces peace,” was the calm reply.  “Highness, the lady whom you were expecting waits in the anteroom.”

Prince Shan nodded.  He welcomed Naida, who was ushered in a moment or two later, with rather more than his usual grave and pleasant courtesy, leading her himself to a chair.