mets under the awning. They evidently are coming on board."

Then she uttered a faint cry. One of the men had stepped from under the awning and stood at his full height on the bow of the launch. The next instant he took off his helmet and waved it at McLeod. sunlight gleamed on a mass of fair hair.

The

"Oh!" she said. "It is Dr. Sinclair. As he stood up I thought it was Allister. Their figures are exactly alike. But it was foolish of me."

McLeod seemed hardly to heed what she was saying. He had climbed on the rail, was frantically waving his white cap, and yelling like a schoolboy.

"What cronies you two are!" she said with mock severity, but laughing all the while. "Talk about the Scotch being clannish! You Canadians beat anything I ever met for clannishness."

"Just some Canadians," answered McLeod. "Will you excuse me?" he called back as he went below.

"Those two must be desperately in love," she said to herself as she smilingly responded to Sinclair's courteous salutation from the bow of the launch.

The next instant McLeod had hold of both Sinclair and Gorman and was ushering them up the companion-way. The sergeant would have declined. But McLeod would take no refusal. The company present were his and Captain Whiteley's guests. And whoever they chose to invite would have to be received as such. And not only Sinclair, but the consul and others who had known him noticed that Gorman's brogue and exaggerated Irishisms were dropped as easily as if they had all been assumed, and the Irish noncom was as much at ease and as correct in his behaviour as any of those who boasted gentle birth.

XX

THE INFALLIBLE EXPERTS

HE next evening (it was a Saturday) Dr. Sinclair dined with the MacAllisters. To his sur

T

prise, and much to his delight, he was the only guest. For the first time he saw something of their home life. He saw, too, Miss MacAllister in a rôle different from anything he had seen before. Up to this time he had always met her as a passenger or a guest, with no responsibilities save those of amusing and being amused. She had been the centre of an admiring circle, free to be as whimsical or wayward as the fancy of the moment suggested. That evening she shared with her mother the duties of hostess and devoted herself to making the evening pleasant for their guest. And Sinclair thought that never before had a single evening brought him so much enjoyment.

He wondered at the change. Was it another side of her character? Or was it that she had changed her attitude towards himself? The previous afternoon he had noticed that she received him with a frank cordiality which had surprised and delighted him. But she had been just as ready with gay banter and raillery as ever, especially when talking to Lanyon or any others of the guests who pressed their attentions upon her. This evening there was none of that. Bright and entertaining she certainly was. But there was not a trace of the whimsical, teasing spirit she

had formerly manifested, nor a word which could make him feel uncomfortable. As the evening sped away he felt himself becoming more and more fascinated. He had met many beautiful and attractive women, but never one who cast such a spell over him.

And though it might a foreign land, and

Mrs. MacAllister was not extremely cordial. She did not wax enthusiastic over him as she had done over De Vaux and Carteret. But she was a Highland hostess in her own home. be only a temporary home in though she had not been anxious to have Dr. Sinclair for dinner, she had too much of the hospitality of her native hills to do otherwise than endeavour to make him feel that he was welcome there.

Mr. MacAllister was cordiality itself. In Sinclair he found a kindred spirit. His interest in men, to whatever race they might belong, his keen insight and trained powers of observation, were refreshing to the shrewd business man after the many men he met who went about the world with eyes which did not see. From the moment they sat down to dinner until they rose from it he plied Sinclair with questions and compared the doctor's observations with his own.

"You have had a great opportunity of studying the Chinese during the last couple of months," he said. "I envy you. Since you went over to Keelung I have visited Foochow, spent another short spell in Amoy, and travelled over a considerable part of South Formosa. But I have felt all the time that I really did not get into touch with the natives. I couldn't speak their languages. I was staying always in the homes of foreigners. I came into contact with the Chinese only, as it were, at second hand. But

for one who has just arrived among them, you have had a remarkable experience and an exceptional opportunity. I envy you."

"It has been an opportunity, though of course too short to form anything like final conclusions. Nevertheless, I saw enough to convince me that the greater part of the information about China which is being served up to the Western world by so-called authorities is absolutely unreliable. The ten-day tourists and meteoric newspaper correspondents get only surface impressions, and even these are generally wrong.

"We had one of them here while you were at Keelung and father was in the South," said Miss MacAllister.

"Is that so? I had not heard. Who was it?" "Mr. F. L. Y. Urquhart, the famous traveller and authority on China."

"Indeed! How long did he stay?"

"Arrived from Foochow on the gunboat Falcon in the forenoon. Called on the consul, the commissioner of customs, and ourselves. Lunched on the Locust. Went up river in the afternoon. Stayed one hour, and returned by the same launch. Had tennis and tea at the consulate. At 6.30 put off to join the Falcon again and sailed immediately for Amoy."

"And I suppose had the fate of Formosa settled." Oh, yes! Quite!"

"What is it?"

"The French will have the island in their possession in a month or six weeks at the outside. Their transports with large land forces and escorted by naval reenforcements have already passed the Suez. Before them the Chinese army will run like sheep, and

the inhabitants will submit without a blow. Once the French flag is hoisted it will never be taken down. Formosa is lost to Britain through the stupidity of old Lord Littlengland, the Foreign Secretary. He refused to accept it when China actually offered to cede it to Britain to keep it out of the hands of the French, as he had absolute assurance from Li Hung-chang himself."

66

Excellently done!" exclaimed Sinclair, laughing at her mimicry of the assurance of the expert. “Did he not call on Dr. MacKay?"

"No. I suggested that he should. He replied that he put no reliance on the opinions of missionaries. They were all narrow-minded fanatics, who couldn't take a broad, large-minded view of the situation."

"So he missed the one man who knows more of the probabilities of this war than all the rest of us taken together?"

"Yes, he missed him entirely. Said that he didn't care to meet him."

"That is it exactly. It is just such self-conceited experts, who know all about China when they have been ashore at half a dozen seaports during the hours of call of a passenger liner and who refuse to learn from those who do know, who have given our Western nations such an exaggerated idea of their own superiority and of China's inferiority."

"Then you think that the Chinese have been underestimated as soldiers," said Mr. MacAllister.

"I certainly do. For one thing, I have never seen nor heard of among any other people anything like the ability of the Chinese to bear pain. I was compelled to perform without anæsthetics operations so painful that most Europeans or Americans would