McDowell turned away, and for a space Keith saw the muscles in the back of his neck twitching.

“Derwent, maybe you’ve guessed, maybe you understand,” he said after a moment with his face still turned to the window.  “Of course she will never know.  I’m too Old, old enough to be her father.  But I’ve got the right to watch over her, and if any man ever injures her—­”

His fists grew knotted, and softly Keith said behind him: 

“You’d possibly do what John Keith did to the man who wronged his father.  And because the Law is not always omniscient, it is also possible that Shan Tung may have to answer in some such way.  Until then, until she comes to you of her own free will and with gladness in her eyes tells you her own secret and why she kept it from you—­until she does that, I say, it is your part to treat her as if you had seen nothing, guessed nothing, suspected nothing.  Do that, McDowell, and leave the rest to me.”

He went out, leaving the iron man still with his face to the window.

With Mary Josephine there was no subterfuge.  His mind was still centered in his own happiness.  He could not wipe out of his brain the conviction that if he waited for Shan Tung he was waiting just so long under the sword of Damocles, with a hair between him and doom.  He hoped that Miriam Kirkstone’s refusal to confide in him and her reluctance to furnish him with the smallest facts in the matter would turn Mary Josephine’s sympathy into a feeling of indifference if not of actual resentment.  He was disappointed.  Mary Josephine insisted on having Miss Kirkstone over for dinner the next day, and from that hour something grew between the two girls which Keith knew he was powerless to overcome.  Thereafter he bowed his head to fate.  He must wait for Shan Tung.

“If it wasn’t for your promise not to fall in love, I’d be afraid,” Mary Josephine confided to him that night, perched on the arm of his big chair.  “At times I was afraid today, Derry.  She’s lovely.  And you like pretty hair—­and hers—­is wonderful!”

“I don’t remember,” said Keith quietly, “that I promised you I wouldn’t fall in love.  I’m desperately in love, and with you, Mary Josephine.  And as for Miss Kirkstone’s lovely hair—­I wouldn’t trade one of yours for all she has on her head.”

At that, with a riotous little laugh of joy, Mary Josephine swiftly unbound her hair and let it smother about his face and shoulders.  “Sometimes I have a terribly funny thought, Derry,” she whispered.  “If we hadn’t always been sweethearts, back there at home, and if you hadn’t always liked my hair, and kissed me, and told me I was pretty, I’d almost think you weren’t my brother!”