The Chinaman paused.  He saw that his words were falling upon dull ears.  He turned to observe what this object was that had so unexpectedly diverted the young man’s attention.  It was the girl.  She was standing before a window, against the background of the rain-burdened April sky.  There was enough contra-light to render her ethereal.

Spurlock was basically a poet, quick to recognize beauty, animate or inanimate, and to transcribe it in unuttered words.  He was always word-building, a metaphorist, lavish with singing adjectives; but often he built in confusion because it was difficult to describe something beautiful in a new yet simple way.

He had not noticed the girl particularly when she offered the sandwiches; but in this moment he found her beautiful.  Her face reminded him of a delicate unglazed porcelain cup, filled with blond wine.  But there was something else; and in his befogged mental state the comparison eluded him.

Ruth broke the exquisite pose by summoning Ah Cum, who was lured into a lecture upon the water-clock.  This left Spurlock alone.

He began munching his water-chestnuts—­a small brown radish-shaped vegetable, with the flavour of coconut—­that grow along the river brims.  Below the window he saw two coolies carrying a coffin, which presently they callously dumped into a yawning pit.  This made the eleventh.  There were no mourners.  But what did the occupant of the box care?  The laugh was always with the dead:  they were out of the muddle.

From the unlovely hillside his glance strayed to the several five-story towers of the pawnshops.  Celestial Uncles!  Spurlock chuckled, and a bit of chestnut, going down the wrong way, set him to coughing violently.  When the paroxysm passed, he was forced to lean against the window-jamb for support.

“That young man had better watch his cough,” said Spinster Prudence.  “He acts queerly, too.”

“They always act like that after drink,” said Ruth, casually.

She intercepted the glance the spinsters exchanged, and immediately sensed that she had said too much.  There was no way of recalling the words; so she waited.

“Miss Enschede—­such an odd name!—­are you French?”

“Oh, no.  Pennsylvania Dutch.  But I have never seen America.  I was born on an island in the South Seas.  I am on my way to an aunt who lives in Hartford, Connecticut.”

The spinsters nodded approvingly.  Hartford had a very respectable sound.

Ruth did not consider it necessary, however, to add that she had not notified this aunt of her coming, that she did not know whether the aunt still resided in Hartford or was underground.  These two elderly ladies would call her stark mad.  Perhaps she was.

“And you have seen ... drunken men?” Prudence’s tones were full of suppressed horror.

“Often.  A very small settlement, mostly natives.  There was a trader—­a man who bought copra and pearls.  Not a bad man as men go, but he would sell whisky and gin.  Over here men drink because they are lonely; and when they drink too hard and too long, they wind up on the beach.”