It was as if with a swiftness invisible to the eye a mask had dropped
from Shan Tung's face. Keith, preparing to fight, urging himself on to
the step which he believed he must take, was amazed. Shan Tung was
earnest. There was more than earnestness in his eyes, an anxiety, a
frankly revealed hope that Keith would meet him halfway. But he did not
offer his hand again. He seemed to sense, in that instant, the vast
gulf between yellow and white. He felt Keith's contempt, the spurning
contumely that was in the other's mind. Under the pallid texture of his
skin there began to burn a slow and growing flush.
"Wait!" he said softly. In his flowing gown he seemed to glide to a
carven desk near at hand. He was back in a moment with a roll of
parchment in his hand. He sat down again and met Keith's eyes squarely
and in silence for a moment.
"We are both MEN, John Keith." His voice was soft and calm. His
tapering fingers with their carefully manicured nails fondled the roll
of parchment, and then unrolled it, and held it so the other could read.
It was a university diploma. Keith stared. A strange name was scrolled
upon it, Kao Lung, Prince of Shantung. His mind leaped to the truth. He
looked at the other.
The man he had known as Shan Tung met his eyes with a quiet, strange
smile, a smile in which there was pride, a flash of sovereignty, of a
thing greater than skins that were white. "I am Prince Kao," he said.
"That is my diploma. I am a graduate of Yale."
Keith's effort to speak was merely a grunt. He could find no words. And
Kao, rolling up the parchment and forgetting the urn of tea that was
growing cold, leaned a little over the table again. And then it was,
deep in his narrowed, smoldering eyes, that Keith saw a devil, a
living, burning thing of passion, Kao's soul itself. And Kao's voice
was quiet, deadly.
"I recognized you in McDowell's office," he said. "I saw, first, that
you were not Derwent Conniston. And then it was easy, so easy. Perhaps
you killed Conniston. I am not asking, for I hated Conniston. Some day
I should have killed him, if he had come back. John Keith, from that
first time we met, you were a dead man. Why didn't I turn you over to
the hangman? Why did I warn you in such a way that I knew you would
come to see me? Why did I save your life which was in the hollow of my
hand? Can you guess?"
"Partly," replied Keith. "But go on. I am waiting." Not for an instant
had it enter his mind to deny that he was John Keith. Denial was folly,
a waste of time, and just now he felt that nothing in the world was
more precious to him than time.
Kao's quick mind, scheming and treacherous though it was, caught his
view-point, and he nodded appreciatively. "Good, John Keith. It is
easily guessed. Your life is mine. I can save it. I can destroy it. And
you, in turn, can be of service to me. You help me, and I save you. It
is a profitable arrangement. And we both are happy, for you keep
Derwent Conniston's sister--and I--I get my golden-headed goddess,
Miriam Kirkstone!"
"That much I have guessed," said Keith. "Go on!" For a moment Kao
seemed to hesitate, to study the cold, gray passiveness of the other's
face. "You love Derwent Conniston's sister," he continued in a voice
still lower and softer. "And I--I love my golden-headed goddess. See!
Up there on the dais I have her picture and a tress of her golden hair,
and I worship them."
Colder and grayer was Keith's face as he saw the slumbering passion
burn fiercer in Kao's eyes. It turned him sick. It was a terrible thing
which could not be called love. It was a madness. But Kao, the man
himself, was not mad. He was a monster. And while the eyes burned like
two devils, his voice was still soft and low.
"I know what you are thinking; I see what you are seeing," he said.
"You are thinking yellow, and you are seeing yellow. My skin! My
birthright! My--" He smiled, and his voice was almost caressing.
"John Keith, in Pe-Chi-Li is the great city of Pekin, and Pe-Chi-Li is
the greatest province in all China. And second only to that is the
province of Shantung, which borders Pe-Chi-Li, the home of our Emperors
for more centuries than you have years. And for so many generations
that we cannot remember my forefathers have been rulers of Shantung. My
grandfather was a Mandarin with the insignia of the Eighth Order, and
my father was Ninth and highest of all Orders, with his palace at
Tsi-Nan, on the Yellow Sea. And I, Prince Kao, eldest of his sons, came
to America to learn American law and American ways. And I learned them,
John Keith. I returned, and with my knowledge I undermined a
government. For a time I was in power, and then this thing you call the
god of luck turned against me, and I fled for my life. But the blood is
still here--" he put his hand softly to his breast, "--the blood of a
hundred generations of rulers. I tell you this because you dare not
betray me, you dare not tell them who I am, though even that truth
could not harm me. I prefer to be known as Shan Tung. Only you--and
Miriam Kirkstone--have heard as much."