CHAPTER V.
The times went by, and Marco Polo busied himself with his daily affairs, keeping track of the galleasses with merchandise to strange far-away ports, buying presents for refractory governors who didn't care for foreign trade in their domains, getting wisdom from the old clerks, and knowledge from the mariners; in the main, acting as the son of a great house while the heads of it were away.
You would think that he would have forgotten what the sea-captain of China told him about Golden Bells, what with work and sport and other women near him.

You would think that would drop out of his memory like an old rime.

But it stuck there, as an old rime sometimes sticks, and by dint of thinking he had her fast now in his mind--so fast, so clear, so full of life, that she might be some one he had seen an hour ago or was going to see an hour from now.

He would think of the now merry, now sad eyes of her, and the soft, sweet voice of her by reason of which they called her Golden Bells, and the dusky little face, and the hair like black silk, and the splotch of the red flower in it.

She was as distinct to him as the five fingers on his hand.