contrast between the grandiloquent words and the ridiculous figure
which uttered them was too much for him. Besides, though the most
courteous of men, he deliberately wished to be insulting. He
couldn't help it. There rose up in him, suddenly, a wild and
unreasoning anger that mere paternity could place anyone (and
especially a young girl with cool, grey eyes) in the power of such a
caricature of manhood.

"Really?" said Spence. There was everything in the word that tone
could utter of challenge and derision. He raised himself upon his
elbow. The doctor, who had been closely contemplating his umbrella,
looked up slowly. The eyes of the two men met. . . . Spence had
never seen eyes like that . . . they dazzled him like sudden
sunlight on a blade of steel . . . they clung to his mind and
bewildered it . . . he forgot the question at issue . . . he forgot-
-

Just then Li Ho opened the kitchen door.

"Get 'um lunch now," said Li Ho, in his toneless drawl. "Like 'um
egg flied? Like 'um boiled?"

Spence sank back upon his pillow.

"Like um any old way!" he said. His voice sounded a little
breathless.

The doctor, once again absorbed in the contemplation of his
umbrella, went out.