Page:Frank Owen - The Wind That Tramps the World (1929).djvu/77

 have brought you here to tell you this before permitting you to view Liane, my gorgeous little flower girl."

Ras Orla was very alert. The nectar-wine had excited him. He wished romance and adventure. Rare beauty was a joy to contemplate but he knew the Chinese mind and so he did not appear over-anxious. He made no comment, merely sat and waited.

Yuan Shi Kai rose to his feet. "We will go back into the floral halls," he murmured.

And now as they walked through the pungent green haze, the fragrance seemed to intensify. It intoxicated to madness. It was like naught but a beautiful dream, to be treasured and remembered. Back in the soft green mist, Yuan Shi Kai called in a voice of awe, "Liane, little Liane!"

And then she came to them, came like the pink glow of the dawn, like a flower that had suddenly come to life. She was attired in robes of soft pink silk, robes that resembled rose or orchid petals. Her hair was golden which added to her flowerlike appearance. A China girl with golden hair! It could not be. The straight line of her nose, the soft warm curve of her lips, the deep blue of her eyes canopied by lashes of wondrous length, there was nothing Oriental about her in appearance. How could she have been a child of China?

Yuan Shi Kai noticed Ras Orla's surprise.

"Perhaps," he murmured, "she is not an Earth Child at all but a child of the yellow moon. It was on a