"How can you bear to sell to others what has ruined your life?" Angela could not help asking.
"I would do anything now to have opium," he said calmly. "But it is the old smokers who smoke the yenshee, not the young ones. So I do no harm."
Angela sprang up, shuddering. "Is there nothing I can do to help you?" she pleaded, her eyes turned from him, as he began to cook another pill.
"You can buy something I sell. That will help. Do you like this?" And he pointed to a little painted china group of three monkeys, one of which covered its ears, another its eyes, and the third its mouth. "You know what it means? 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.' It is the motto of our people."
"Yes--I'll buy that. It's a good motto," Angela stammered. Taking up the little figures, she laid a five-dollar gold piece on the box table, knowing only too well what it would buy.
"You wish to see me smoke this other pipe?" and he put it to his toothless mouth.
She pushed past the Chinese girl, hardly knowing what she did. She felt faint and sick, as if she must have fresh air. As her hand fumbled for the latch, the door was pushed violently open, and Hilliard came in, with Schermerhorn at his back.
"Thank Heaven!" Nick stammered. He was very pale.
"You gave us a pretty bad scare, Miss," added the man, who had been informed that Nick was "not her husband."
"Lucky I thought of this house, and this old chap."
"But--there was no danger," Angela defended herself. "Nothing could have happened."
"Most anything can happen--in Chinatown," mumbled Schermerhorn. "Did you ever read a story by Norris called _The Third Circle?_"
"Not yet," said Angela. "I bought the book, but----"
"Well, read that story when you get home to-night, Miss, and maybe you'll know what your young gentleman here went through."
Her "young gentleman!" But Angela did not smile. A thing would have had to be very funny to strike her as laughable just then.
"No, don't read it to-night," said Nick. "Wait till another time."
"Will you forgive me?" she asked, looking at him. "I'm sorry. I didn't suppose you'd mind much."
"I was in--Hades for a few minutes," said Nick, hastily qualifying the remark he had been about to make.
Only one letter had Nick written to Carmen Gaylor--the one he had promised to write, telling her of his arrival in New York; that he was "pretty lonely, and didn't know how long he could stand for seeing no home sights." It never occurred to him to write again; and Carmen was not surprised at his remissness. She knew that Nick was not the sort of man who likes to write letters or can put his feelings upon paper. But when she received her invitation to visit Rushing River Camp, she could have sung for joy.