Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/176

 opened the tall gates led the way swiftly and without sound to the courtyard of the house. Mark and Alan held their breath as they crossed the shallow stone steps and entered the wide, bare hall.

The young Chinese student whom Mr. Tyler had sent with them as guide and interpreter gave them rapid and nervous instructions while they waited, stiffly, on the low, black, carved chairs. Mark scarcely heard these elaborate rules of etiquette. He was wondering if it had been here, in this dim, gilded mansion, that his great-grandfather had sat beside the couch of T'ang Min to sign the document; wondering if perhaps they all were dreaming, and if, after all, he could be sitting in his own old Windsor chair in his room at Resthaven. Resthaven! No, a dream could not be so real that Resthaven could seem so infinitely far away.

From an inner court came a gleam of sunshine, a sheen of leaves, the drone of falling fountain-water, the croon and whisper of pigeons. This must have been the same always, nor would it ever change. This civilization moved in the slow cycles of a thousand