McDowell had practically given him an assignment. And
Miss Kirkstone was holding him. Also Shan Tung. He felt within himself
the sensation of one who was traveling on very thin ice, yet he could
not tell just where or why it was thin.
"Just a fool hunch," he assured himself.
"Why the deuce should I let a confounded Chinaman and a pretty girl get
on my nerves at this stage of the game? If it wasn't for McDowell--"
And there he stopped. He had fought too long at the raw edge of things
to allow himself to be persuaded by delusions, and he confessed that it
was John Keith who was holding him, that in some inexplicable way John
Keith, though officially dead and buried, was mixed up in a mysterious
affair in which Miriam Kirkstone and Shan Tung were the moving factors.
And inasmuch as he was now Derwent Conniston and no longer John Keith,
he took the logical point of arguing that the affair was none of his
business, and that he could go on to the mountains if he pleased. Only
in that direction could he see ice of a sane and perfect thickness, to
carry out the metaphor in his head. He could report indifferently to
McDowell, forget Miss Kirkstone, and disappear from the menace of Shan
Tung's eyes.
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