It's a very nice tea-room, an admirable blind for the opium stalls behind those walls." In a few terse words he had covered the situation, as he would have covered a similar situation in a business deal.

He had told the girl who and what he was, had revealed the cause of his interest in her, and at the same time had given her to understand that he was aware of the nature of their present environment.

Closely he watched the effect of his words and in another breath was sorry that he had been so blunt.

The girl's eyes traveled swiftly about her; he saw the quick rise and fall of her bosom, the swift fading of the color in her cheeks, the affrighted glow in her eyes as they came back big and questioning to him.
"I didn't know," she wrote quickly, and hesitated.

Her face was as white now as when Howland had looked on it through the window.