It was quiet there, and pleasant in the starlight, faintly gilded by the street lamps.  The young moon of the sixth month, which had sunk with the sun when Angela was in Monterey, had not yet dropped beyond distant house roofs.  Its pearly profile looked down, surrounded by a clear-cut ring, like the face of a pale saint seen through the rose-window of a cathedral.  Soon the guide came, a little dark man with a Jewish face, a German name, an American accent, and the polite manner of an Oriental.

“What would you like the lady to see?” he asked.

“Everything you advise,” said Nick.  “We’ve dined in a Chinese restaurant, and seen the things everybody sees.  Now we’ll do a few barber shops and drug stores, and anything else queer you can think of.”

“There’s an old fellow,” suggested the guide, “who used to be head musician in the big Chinese theatre.  He has a place of his own now, about four storeys underground, where he tinkles on every sort of Chinese instrument.  Probably the lady would like to visit him.  And I know a house where children sing and dance.  It’s underground too; and the poor little brutes, who go to two kinds of schools till nine o’clock, are at it till midnight.  But the lady needn’t mind.  If she doesn’t go, somebody else will, so the kids are kept out of their beds all the same—­the more money the merrier.  You may get to see a Chinese funeral too, though I ain’t sure of one to-night——­”

“I guess the lady wouldn’t enjoy butting in at a funeral,” said Nick.

“No, she wouldn’t!” Angela added hastily.  “But I should love to see them playing fan-fan—­isn’t that what they call the gambling game?—­and—­and smoking opium.”

“Afraid the gambling can’t be managed,” said Mr. Jacob Schermerhorn, sadly shaking his head, as if the good days were gone.  “But you’d like a little curio store I’ll take you to—­owned by an American lady married to a Chinese, and wearing the costume.  They sell relics of the fire.  And a joss-house is interesting——­”

“But the opium smoking——­” Angela persisted, suspecting that he meant to slide off the subject.

“That’s not easy.  Opium smoking’s forbidden, and——­”

But Angela grew obstinate.  “I shan’t feel I’ve seen Chinatown unless I’ve seen that.  The books say it goes on.”

“It does, on the quiet—­very quiet!  But they’re scared to death of being found out.  Besides——­”

“Besides—­what?”

“Well, ma’am, your husband said when he engaged me he thought it would be best not to try and get you into any such place.  It might hurt your feelings.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Angela.  Her “feelings,” if not hurt, were in commotion.  “He—­he isn’t my husband.”

Then she wondered if it would not have been better to have kept silence, and let the man think what he pleased.  He would never see or hear of her again.  She laughed to show Nick that she was not embarrassed, and then hurried on.  “I must see them smoking!”