EILL McNEILL walked out of Grand Central Station, scorning a taxicab. The hotel could send for his baggage. With all the fervor of one American born—New York born, at that—who has been expatriated for years in a barbaric kingdom, he wanted to see, smell and taste New York. He bought a paper but did not look at it. People interested him more than news so far. He was already wondering how soon he could call upon the Remsdens—upon Helen Remsden, to be exact. It was mid-morning and he would have to wait until afternoon he decided. But he could send some flowers, and did.
He walked down Fifth Avenue to his hotel, got his room, washed up and went out again on the streets. The unread paper was still in his pocket. Still on the Avenue, enjoying the bustle of the crowds, the things in the shop windows, he came to Madison Square and sat down among the flotsam and jetsam of the city. Presently he pulled out the paper and gradually became more and more interested. On an inner page was a half-tone engraving of two men in the most modern of conventional attire, silk-hatted yet prominently foreign, Oriental. The caption read:
It was interesting reading to McNeill, though he wondered at the strange turn of mind that changed the descendants of so old a dynasty to such ardent liberalists. But the establishment of the new republic upon so firm a basis as to make its envoys recognized generally by the United States Government, as these princes seemed to be, to judge by what they had done and what programs were still in store for them officially, held a measure of comfort.
The old powers and traditions of Hoang Lung would die hard, but they might, in the rush of new thought and an open policy toward the Occident, die swiftly. Much of their power would be curtailed with their prestige. They would he low awhile until the ever turning kaleidoscope of awakening China shifted to a new pattern of the same varicolored parts.
There would be a lifting of the ban against the desecrators of the shrine, and the followers of the old legendary faiths would be content with the restoration of their relic. He wondered if Prince Liu Chi or his cousin had heard of the outrage. If so their racial traits would hold the memory despite the 'camouflage of New World veneer. China's ancient faith would not change with its policies, save outwardly. The two nobles were registered at his own hotel, he noted.
Another article flashed at him as he turned the page. It was not a lengthy one, but the headlines leaped at him, making the half-inch capitals that formed the name of Remsden seem as large as wood block freak captions. The article read:
This was a staggering thing and McNeill, mechanically folding up the paper, emitted so sharp a whistle that the passers-by looked at him curiously. But he paid no heed to them.
How could Remsden have presented the claw to the museum when, he, McNeill, had given it over to Tao Chan as ransom for the girl? Some jugglery had gone on here—jugglery that increased the danger to Remsden and his stepdaughter to the nth degree. The visit of the two princes could not be merely a coincidence. Their liberalism was palpably a blind and their real mission revealed. They were after the claw.
Yet the claw was with Tao Chan. It could not be possible that Remsden had regained it. He had literally fled from Peking. It was almost absurd to think there was another relic like it. McNeill was positive there was not. Even if there was, the possession of it—the gift of it to the museum would be as deadly. The interview did not ring true to McNeill. It might have been reported correctly, but what did an American newspaperman know of the subtleties of the Oriental mind? No matter what story Remsden might have coined as to his obtaining possession of the relic, to exhibit such an object of reverence to the princes would be, in their eyes, little short of an insult—a sacrilege. They must surely know all about what had happened at the temple.
While Americans might think little of a Chinese museum having on show specimens of early American culture or crudeness, the claw had been imbedded for unrecorded centuries in the heart of all that was Chinese. It was interwoven with the very essence of ancestor worship. It was holy. No American who had not lived years in China could ever hope to see the differences of thought in such an affair. The racial ideas of the two nations were thousands of years apart. Even Remsden could not properly sense what McNeill felt.