The Honorable Percival

XI

THE GYMKHANA

The experiences of his first twenty-four hours in Japan were repeated with variations three times before Percival reached Kobe. His mad desire to overtake Bobby had carried him from Kioto to Nara, where he went to the wrong hotel and missed the Weston party by fifteen minutes. From Nara he made a night journey to Ozaka, during which the small engine broke down in the middle of a rice-field, proving a sorry substitute for the wings of love.

It was with a sigh of relief that he at last boarded the Saluria and sank into his steamer-chair. At least there was one satisfaction, no one but Judson knew of his futile search, and Judson was too well trained to discuss his master's affairs. How good it was to be on board once more! He felt an almost sentimental attachment for the steamer which three weeks ago had fallen so short of what an ocean-liner ought to be. Then the Saluria was only an old Atlantic transport transferred to the Pacific to do passenger service, but now she was a veritable ship of romance, freighted with memories and dreams.

The passengers, coming aboard, seemed like old friends, and he found himself greeting each in turn with a nod that surprised them as much as it did him. At any moment now Bobby Boynton might appear, and the prospect of seeing her raised his spirits to such a height that he wondered if he would be able to play the rôle he had assigned himself.

He had definitely decided to be an injured, but forgiving, friend. She should be made no less aware of his wounds than of his generosity. She would doubtless recall another incident in which he had met ingratitude with noble forgiveness, and she would rush to make reparation. If there was one thing he prided himself upon it was a knowledge of women. Never but once had his judgment erred, and even then, could he but remember all his impressions, he doubtless had had moments of misgiving.

Bobby's voice sounded on the ladder, and the next moment she was tripping down the deck toward him. It was in vain that he kept his eyes on the letter in his hand, and assumed an air of complete absorption. She came straight toward him, and dropped into the chair next his own.

"Oh, but you missed it!" she said. "I never had so much fun in all my life."

He did not answer. Instead, he lifted a pair of melancholy eyes, and looked at her steadfastly.

"Oh," she said after a puzzled moment, "I forgot. We are mad, aren't we? One of us owes the other an apology."

"Which do you think it is!" he asked gently, as if appealing to her higher nature.

Bobby, with her head on one side, considered the matter. "Well," she said, "you did something I didn't like, and I did something you didn't like. Strikes me the drinks are on us both."

"The—" Percival's horrified look caused her to exclaim contritely:

"Excuse me, I'll do better next time. Come on, let's make up. Put it there and call it square!"

It was impossible to refuse the small hand that had been the cause of the trouble, but even as Percival thrilled to its clasp he realized his danger. During the course of his twenty-eight years he had always been able to prescribe a certain course for himself and follow it with reasonable certainty. Exciting moments were now occurring when he was unable to tell what his next word or move was going to be. It is quite certain that he never intended to take her hand in both of his and look at her in the way he was doing now.

"What a bunch of letters!" she said, getting possession of her hand. "You see, I have some, too. I'll read you some of mine if you'll read me some of yours. Will you?"

"Which will you have?"

"May I choose? What fun! Read me the one with the sunburst on it."

He obediently adjusted his monocle, broke the seal, and began:

"'My Dear Son:

"'I cannot, I fear, make my letter so long or so interesting as I could desire, owing to the fact that I am afflicted with a slight lumbago, but I will proceed without further preliminary to set down the few incidents of interest that have occurred since my last writing. Your brother is sorely harassed by affairs in the city, and when here he is in constant altercation with the grooms about exercising your horses. I fear you will find them sadly out of condition upon your return.'"

"I call that a darn shame!" said Bobby, sympathetically, then her hand flew to her mouth as she saw Percival's raised eyebrows.

"There I go again! You see, I've been running around with Andy Black, and nobody ever puts on airs with Andy."

Percival gave a sigh of discouragement, then resumed his reading:

"'We have had few guests at the hall since your departure until yesterday, when who should call but the Duchess of Dare!'" Percival paused, and glanced hurriedly down the page.

"Go on!" commanded Bobby.

"It won't interest you in the slightest."

"But it does. Unless there's something you don't want me to hear."

"Not at all. Where was I? Oh, yes, 'call but the Duchess of Dare! She has let her house to some friends, and has come away from London for a fortnight's rest. It was rather queer of her calling, wasn't it? She was less embarrassed than you would imagine and actually had the effrontery to mention Hortense.'"

"Who is Hortense?" asked Bobby, all curiosity.

"Her daughter."

"Well, why shouldn't her mother mention her?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Percival, in deep water; "rather bad form, perhaps."

"For a mother to mention her own child?" Then the light dawned. "Perhaps she is the one you were telling me about."

Percival hastily folded the letter and slipped it into its emblazoned envelop.

"Is she?" persisted Bobby.

"Is she what?"

"The girl you let down easy?"

"Well, really, Miss Boynton—"

"Roberta," corrected Bobby.

"Very well, Roberta. It's your time to read to me. May I choose a letter?"

"No, I'll choose one myself."

"But that isn't fair. I let you select any one you liked."

She thought it over, then somewhat reluctantly held out three envelops. It was so evident that she was trying to keep back the bulky one with the bold address that Percival instantly selected it.

"Some of it's secrets," she warned him, "and you mustn't peep."

"Of course not. But who is it from?"

"That wasn't in the game. I didn't ask you."

"You didn't need to; but go ahead."

"It's all about the ranch," said Bobby, looking over the pages and smiling to herself. "They've had an awful row with the new broncho-buster, and Hal had to punch his head for being cruel to the horses. I knew that fellow wasn't any good." She read on for a while to herself. "Says the shooting promises to be great this year. My! but I hate to miss it!"

"Whatever do you find to shoot?"

"A little of everything from teal duck to Canada goose."

"Really!" exclaimed Percival, with interest. "And do you shoot?"

"Oh, yes, some. I'm not as good as the boys. You see, I have to use Pa Joe's old No. 10 choke-bore shot-gun, when I really ought to have a 16-bore fowling-piece."

Here was a new and wholly unsuspected bond of sympathy between them. Percival would have plunged at once into a dissertation on a subject upon which he considered himself an authority had not the fluttering sheets of the letter stirred vague misgivings in his bosom.

"You aren't playing fair!" he cried. "You are telling me what is in your letter without reading it to me."

"So I am!" She looked over page after page. "Here, this will do. It says: 'I wish you could have been along last night when I hit the trail for the Lower Ranch. You know what that old road looks like in the moonlight, all deep black in the gorges, and white on the cliffs, and not a dog-gone sound but the hoof-beats of your horse and the clank of the bridle-chains. Why, when you come out in the open and the wind gets to ripping 'cross the grass-fields, and the moon gets busy with every little old blade, and there's miles of beauty stretched out far as your eye can reach, I'd back it against any sight in the world. Only last night I wasn't thinking much about the scenery. I was thinking—'" Bobby stopped short, declaring that she had a cinder in her eye.

"Can't be a cinder, out here in the bay," protested Percival.

"Well, it's whatever they have out here."

"And sha'n't I ever know what your friend was thinking?"

"He was probably thinking of his dinner," said Bobby, gazing at him reassuringly with her free eye.

After she had departed to make sure that the steamer got properly under way, he tortured himself with suspicions. What possible secrets could she have with this unknown friend, who waxed sentimental over moonlit trails and wind-swept grassfields? Had not some one told him of an unhappy love-affair? He searched his memory. Suddenly there came to him the disturbing figure of a stalwart young man on a broncho, with leather overalls, jingling spurs, a silk handkerchief knotted about his throat, and a pair of keen, humorous eyes lighting up a sun-bronzed face.

Then he smiled at his quick alarm. Hadn't she told him it was one of her foster-brothers, one of those lads whom he persisted in regarding as children? It was the most natural thing in the world that an impulsive, big-hearted creature like Bobby would be on terms of affectionate intimacy with those boys with whom she had been brought up.

He did not feel fully reassured, however, until he put the question to her flatly:

"That letter you were reading me," he said at his first opportunity—"you won't mind telling me if it is from that chap I saw at the station?"

"I don't mind telling you. But you mustn't tell the captain."

"The captain? Oh, to be sure. Doesn't fancy your friends, the Fords. I remember."

From that time on he boldly and openly entered the lists for Bobby's favor. The ten days he had allowed himself to drift with the tide of his inclination were passing with incredible swiftness, and he resorted to every means, from the subtlest strategy to the most domineering insolence, to monopolize every waking moment of her time.

She responded to all his suggestions with flattering promptness until preparations were set on foot to hold a huge gymkhana, in which everybody on board should take part. The enterprise fired her enthusiasm instantly. She was a born organizer, and the prospect of a whole day devoted to sports captivated her. The project served as a peg on which she and Percival hung their first quarrel.

"Of course I'm going into it," she exclaimed hotly, "and so are you."

"The idea!" said Percival. "I shouldn't think of it for a moment. Fancy me chasing an egg around the deck in a teaspoon, and all that sort of thing!"

"But there are lots of other contests. There's the long jump, and the tug-of-war—"

"And pinning tails on donkeys," added Percival, bitterly. "Dare say you'd like to see me doing that."

"I'd like to see you doing anything that would make you more sociable," flashed Bobby.

For the rest of the day Percival sulked in the smoking-room, raging at the time that was stolen from him, and given to the making of silly rules and the buying of trifling prizes.

On the morning of the sports he arrayed himself in one of the white creations of G. Lung Fat's, giving special attention to the accessories of his toilet. Then, with marked indifference to the games, which were the all-absorbing topic of the day, he had his chair moved to the far side of the deck, and sat there in superior isolation during the whole morning.

But even there he could not avoid hearing what was taking place; shouts of laughter, groans, and jeers over a failure, and frantic applause over a victory, were wafted to him constantly. Now and then some one hurried by with the information that Andy Black had won the quoits prize or that Andy Black had won the bottle-race. His lip curled contemptuously at sports that required a mere trickster's turn of the wrist or an animal's sense of direction. He would like to see Andy attempt a long jump or a mile race. Imagine the fat pink-and-white youth on a polo pony!

At luncheon Andy's praises were passed from lip to lip. The affair had assumed an international significance. A Scotchman, a German, a Japanese, and an American were striving for first place. The captain's patriotism ran so high that he offered to set up the handsomest dinner the Astor Hotel in Shanghai could afford if Andy came out victorious.

In vain Percival sought to hold Bobby's attention. The tapers in her eyes were lighted for Andy, and he was obliged to undergo the new and intolerable sensation of sitting in a darkened niche and watching the candles burn at an adjoining shrine.

The slightest hint of deflection in one upon whom he had bestowed his favor maddened him. He had showered upon this ungrateful girl attentions the very husks of which would have sustained several English girls he knew through a lifetime of patient waiting. He recalled their unswerving loyalty with a glow at his heart.

Ah, he thought, one must look to England for ideal womanhood. Where else was to be found that beautiful deference, that blind reliance, that unswerving loyalty—At the word "loyalty" a stabbing memory of Lady Hortense punctured his eloquence.

During the afternoon he found it impossible to escape the games. The potato and three-legged races brought the contestants to his side of the deck, and his reading was constantly interrupted by an avalanche of noisy spectators who rushed through the cross passages from one side of the boat to the other, exhibiting a perfectly ridiculous amount of excitement.

Andy, it seemed, had only one more entry to win before claiming the day's championship.

"He'll get it!" Percival overheard the captain saying gleefully to Mrs. Weston. "None of 'em are in it with America when it comes to sports."

Percival flicked the ashes from his cigar, and, carefully adjusting his tie, rose, and made his way to the judges' table.

"How many more events are there?" he asked in a superior tone.

"One," was the answer.

"How many entries?"

"Two. Mr. Black and the Scotch gentleman."

"Make it three," said Percival, as if he were ordering cocktails.

In the confusion of preparing for the last and most elaborate feature of the day, Percival's enlistment was not discovered. It was not until the contestants ranged themselves in front of the judges' table that a buzz of fresh interest and amazement swept the deck. First came the Scot, lean, wiry, and deadly determined; then came Andy, plump and pink, with his fair hair ruffled, and a laughing retort on his lips for every sally that was sent in his direction. Last came the Honorable Percival, a distinguished figure in immaculate array, wearing upon his aristocratic features a look of contemptuous superiority.

"What are the rules of the game?" he inquired, looking into space.

"There's just one rule," called Captain Boynton from the background—"Get there."

"The American motto, I believe," said Percival, quietly, and the crowd laughed.

The Scot was the first to start, and Percival watched anxiously to see the nature of the race he had entered. He saw his adversary dash forward as the signal sounded, climb over a pile of upturned chairs, scramble under a table, scale a high net fence, then disappear around the deck, only to emerge later from the mouth of a funnel-shaped tunnel, through which his contortions had been followed by shrieks of merriment.

Percival realized too late what he had let himself in for. Not for worlds would he have subjected himself to such buffoonery had he known. It was not the sport of a gentleman; it was the play of a circus clown! He watched with horrified disgust as the Scot's grimy face and tousled head emerged from the canvas cavern.

"Four minutes and five seconds," called the umpire.

Andy Black stepped confidently forward amid a burst of applause.

"The champion Roly-Poly of the Pacific," some one called.

"The Saluria's Little Sunbeam," suggested another.

Andy smiled blandly, and kissed his fingertips. The signal sounded, and he bounded off, bouncing from one obstacle to another like a rubber ball. It was only in the twenty-yard dash from the net fence to the canvas tunnel that he lost ground.

"Four minutes, two seconds," announced the umpire as Andy scrambled out on all fours.

At that moment Percival would willingly have exchanged places with the grimiest stoker in the hold. Was it possible that he had, of his own accord, placed himself in this absurd and undignified position for the sole purpose of defeating a common, commercial traveler who had dared to deflect the natural course of a certain damsel's smiles! He writhed under the ignominy of it. What if he were defeated? What if—

The signal sounded, and instinctively he hurled himself forward. As he scrambled over the upturned chairs he heard a sound that struck terror to his soul: it was the unmistakable hiss of tearing linen. The hastily made garments of G. Lung Fat had proved unequal to the strain put upon them. Percival lost his head completely when he realized that his waistcoat was split up the back from hem to collar, and that he had become an object of the wildest hilarity.

He might have fled the scene then and there, leaving Andy to enjoy his laurels undisturbed, had he not caught sight of Bobby frantically motioning him to go on. Setting his teeth grimly, he went down on all fours and scrambled under the table, then resolutely tackled that swaying, sagging network of ropes that barred his progress. Again and again he got nearly to the top, only to have his foot go through the wide bars and leave him hanging there in the most awkward and ungainly position. It seemed to him an eternity that he hung ignominiously, like a fly in a spider's web, while the crowd went wild with merriment.

Then suddenly all his fighting blood rose, and forgetting the spectators, and even forgetting Bobby, he doggedly grappled with those yielding ropes until he got a foothold, swung himself over the top, cleared the entanglement below, and made a flying dash for the yawning mouth of canvas at the far end of the deck. It was incredibly hot and suffocating inside, but he wriggled frantically forward, clawing and kicking like a crab. At last a dim light ahead spurred him to one final gallant effort.

"Four minutes!" called the umpire as the Honorable Percival Hascombe emerged, blinking and breathless, and staggered to his feet. His clothes were soiled and torn, his hair was on end, there was dust in his eyes, and dirt in his mouth.

The fickle audience went wild. The dark horse had won, and public favor immediately swung in his direction. But it was not the favor of the public that Percival sought; it was the homage of a certain rebellious maiden, who must be taught that he was the master of any situation in which he found himself.

Bobby was not slow to proffer her congratulations. She gave them with both hands, to say nothing of her eyes and her dimple.

"I pulled for you!" she whispered eagerly. "I almost prayed for you. I wouldn't have seen you beaten for the world."

As Percival, elated by her enthusiasm, stood shaking hands right and left, he felt a curious and unfamiliar warmth stealing over him. All these people whom he had looked upon until to-day as so many figureheads stalking about suddenly became human beings. He found, to his surprise, that he knew their names and they knew his. He sat on a table, swinging his feet in unison with a lot of other young feet, while he sipped lemonade from the same glass as Bobby Boynton.

As a matter of fact, the Honorable Percival Hascombe was experiencing a novel sensation. He was enjoying a sense of fellowship, to which all his life he had been a stranger.

XII

THE SONG OF THE SIREN

By the time the Saluria anchored off Shanghai, the fires in Percival's bosom had assumed the proportions of a conflagration. No sooner were they seemingly conquered by the cold stream of reason that was poured upon them than they broke forth again with fresh and alarming violence.

On the launch coming up the Hwang-pu River he took the precaution of engaging Bobby Boynton's company not only for the day on shore, but for the evening as well. With hardened effrontery he bore the young lady away in exactly the high-handed manner so bitterly condemned in Andy Black at Yokohama.

The day on shore was one he was destined never to forget. The glamour of it suffused even material old China with a roseate hue. With gracious condescension he visited gaily decked temples and many-storied pagodas, he loitered in silk and porcelain shops, and wound in and out of narrow, ill-smelling streets, even allowing Bobby to conduct him through that amazing quarter known as Pig Alley. He not only submitted to all these diversions; he demanded more. He seemed to have developed an ambition to leave no place of interest in or about Shanghai unvisited.

Tiffin-time found them at a well-known tea-house in Nanking Road—a tea-house with golden dragons climbing over its walls and long wooden signs bearing cabalistic figures swinging in the wind like so many banners. Percival secured a table on the upper balcony, where they could look down on the passing throng, and here in the intimate solitude of a foreign crowd they had their lunch.

Bobby was too excited to eat; she hung over the balcony, exclaiming at every new sight and sound, and appealing to Percival constantly for enlightenment. Fortunately he had spent part of the previous day poring over a Shanghai guide-book, so he was able to meet her inquiries with the most amazing satisfaction.

"I don't see how any one human being can know as much as you do!" she exclaimed, with a look that Buddha might have envied.

"Even I make mistakes occasionally," said Percival, modestly. "Can't always be right, you know."

"But you are," she persisted; "you are always abominably right, and I am always wrong."

"Adorably wrong," amended Percival, assisting with the tea-things.

"Two, three, four?" she asked, holding up the sugar-tongs.

"Doesn't matter so long as I have you to look at."

Now, when an Englishman ceases to be particular about the amount of sugar in his tea, you may know he is very far gone indeed. By the time he had drained three cups of the jasmine-scented beverage and basked in the brilliance of Bobby's smiles through the smoking of two cigars, he was feeling decidedly heady.

"If we are going to the races, we really must start," declared Bobby when she found the situation getting difficult.

"What's the use of going anywhere?" asked Percival, blowing one ring of smoke through another.

"Why, we are seeing the sights of Shanghai. You said you were crazy about China."

"So I am. You are quite determined on the races?"

"Quite," said Bobby.

Their way to the track lay along the famous Bubbling Well Road, and as they bowled along in a somewhat imposing victoria, with a couple of liveried Chinamen on the box, Bobby sat bolt upright, her cheeks flushed, and her eager eyes drinking in the sights.

It was a scene sufficiently gay to hold the interest of a much more sophisticated person than the untraveled young lady from Wyoming. The whole of society, it appeared, was on route to the races. The road was thronged with smart traps full of brilliantly dressed people of every nationality. There were gay parties from the various legations, French, Russian, Japanese, German, English, American. In and out among the whirling wheels of the foreigners poured the unending procession of native life, unperturbed, unconcerned. A Chinese lady in black satin trousers and gorgeous embroidered coat, wearing a magnificent head-dress of jade and pearls, rode side by side with a coolie who trundled a wheelbarrow which carried his wife on one side and his week's provisions on the other. Water-carriers, street vendors, jinrikisha-runners, women with bound feet, children on foot, and children strapped on the backs of their mothers, crossed and recrossed, surged in and out.

But the Honorable Percival concerned himself little with these petty details. To him China was only a pleasing background for Miss Roberta Boynton; he saw no further than her eager, smiling eyes, and heard nothing more distant than the ripple of her laughter.

At the races they found an absorbing bond of interest. The love of horse-flesh was ingrained in both, and the merits of the various ponies provoked endless discussion. Lights were beginning to twinkle on the bund when they drove back to the hotel.

"Where shall we go to-night!" asked Percival, as eager at the end of this eight hours' tête-à-tête as he had been at the start.

"To the ball, of course," said Bobby. "The hotel is giving it in honor of the Saluria."

"Heavens! what a bore! Can't we dodge it?"

"You can if you want to. Andy'll take me. He's just waiting to see if you renig."

"Renig?" repeated Percival.

"Yes," said Bobby—"fluke, back out; you know what I mean."

That settled it with Percival. Five minutes before the hour appointed he was waiting impatiently in one of the small reception-rooms to conduct Miss Boynton to that most abhorred of all functions, a public ball. What possible pleasure he was going to get out of standing against the wall and watching her dance with other men he could not conceive. He assured himself that he was acting like a fool, and that if he kept on at the pace he was going, Heaven only knew what folly he might commit in the four days that must pass before he reached Hong-Kong.

Hong-Kong! The word had but one association for him. It was the home of his eldest and most conservative sister, a lady of uncompromising social standards, who recognized only two circles of society, the one over which her mother presided in London, and the smaller one over which she reigned as the wife of the British diplomatic official in the land of her adoption.

At the mere thought of presenting Bobby to this paragon of social perfection, Percival shuddered. He could imagine Sister Cordelia's pitiless survey of the girl through her lorgnette, the lifting of her brows over some mortal sin against taste or some deadly transgression in her manner of speech. Of course, he assured himself it would never do; the idea of bringing them together was wholly preposterous. And yet—

A Chinese youth, with a handful of trinkets, slipped into the room, and furtively proffered his wares.

"Very good, number-one jade-stone. Make missy velly plitty. Can buy?"

Percival motioned him away, only to have him return.

"Jade-stone velly nice! Plitty young missy wanchee jade-stone."

"Did she say she wanted it?" demanded Percival, with sudden interest.

The boy grinned. "Oh, yes. Wanchee heap! No have got fifty dollar'. Master have got. Wanchee buy?"

Percival tossed him the money and lay the pendant on the table. Then he resumed his pacing and his disturbed meditations. If he could only keep himself firmly in hand during those next four days, all would be well. Once safely anchored in the harbor of his sister's eminently proper English circle, the song of the siren would doubtless fade away, and he would thank Heaven fervently for his miraculous escape. Meanwhile he listened with increasing impatience for the first flutter of the siren's wings,

"Wanchee Manchu coatt?" whispered an insidious voice at his elbow, and, looking down, he saw the enterprising lad with a pile of gorgeous silks over his arm and cupidity writ large in his narrow eyes.

"No, no; go away!" commanded Percival.

"Velly fine dragon coat. Him all same b'long mandarin. How much?"

Percival turned away, but at every step was presented with another garment for inspection. Despite himself, his artistic eye was caught and held by the beauty of the fabrics.

"How much?" he asked, picking up a marvelous affair of silver and gray, lined with the faintest of shell pinks. It was the exact tone and sheen to set Bobby's beauty off to the greatest advantage. The argument over the price was short and fierce, and Percival laid the coat beside the pendant on the table.

He promised himself to offset the effect of these gifts by a more detached and impersonal manner than he had shown Bobby during the day. So far, he congratulated himself, he had given her no occasion for false hopes. On the contrary, he had gone out of his way on several occasions to express his bitter disapproval of international marriages. When the hour came for them to part, his heart might be mortally wounded, but his conscience, save for a few scratches, would be uninjured.

A quick step in the corridor made him look up. Standing in the doorway was a vision of girlish beauty that had the acrobatic effect of sending his blood into his head and his heart into his eyes. She wore the diaphanous gown of white that he liked best, her hair was coiled at the exact angle he had prescribed, and at her belt were the orchids he had sent up half an hour before. No rhinestones in her hair, no gold beads on her slippers, nothing to mar the simplicity that her all too vivid beauty required. Percival's eyes appraised her at her full value. Even Sister Cordelia would have been propitiated by the sight.

"What's this lovely thing?" cried Bobby, pouncing upon the coat.

"Something I bought to be rid of a troublesome lad. Don't know what I shall do with it, exactly."

"Take it to your sister, of course,"

"She probably has heaps of them."

Bobby slipped her round, bare arms into the loose sleeves, and surveyed herself in the long mirror.

"Isn't that the prettiest thing you ever saw?" she asked, glancing at him over her shoulder.

"It is," said Percival, emphatically. His judgment about the becomingness of the color had, us usual, been unerring.

"I should be no end grateful," he said, "if you'd take it off my hands. My trunks are fearfully stuffed now."

"But I haven't any money," said Bobby, with characteristic frankness; "besides, we don't need things like that in Cheyenne."

"Silly girl! Do you think I have turned merchant, and have got wares for sale? The coat is for you."

Bobby gave a cry of delight, then she looked up dubiously.

"But is it all right for me to take a present like this? I never had anything so big given me—yes, I did, too!" She laughed. "A fellow from Medicine Bow sent me a barrel of mixed fruit once, with nuts and raisins in between, and ten pounds of candy on top!"

"Then why scruple at my gift?"

Her brow clouded. "But you said girls oughtn't to take things from men they weren't engaged to. You remember that day on deck you got me to give back Andy's scarf-pin?"

Percival cleared his throat.

"Quite a different matter," he said; "now, between you and me—"

Bobby shook her head as she took off the coat.

"No, I guess not. I want it so bad I can taste it, but I think you'd better keep it for somebody in the family."

Percival slipped the jade pendant into his waistcoat pocket, and tossed the coat on a chair.

"As you like," he said. "Shall we go to the ball-room?"

In his secret soul he was inordinately gratified. Of course she should not have accepted the coat, and he should not have tempted her. She had done exactly right in firmly adhering to his former instructions. Altogether she was a remarkable little person indeed.

The moment they appeared in the ballroom she was confiscated, and he had a miserable quarter of an hour watching her whirl from one masculine arm to another. For the first time dancing struck him as pernicious. He declared that the clergy had something on its side when it denounced the amusement as evil. He doubted gravely if he should ever permit a wife of his to dance.

"Mr. Hascombe, aren't you going to ask me to dance?" It was Bobby who had stopped before him, flushed and breathless.

"I don't dance at public balls," he said disapprovingly.

"Why not?" asked Bobby, in surprise.

"Hardly the thing. A person in my position, you know—"

"You mean because of the Honorable? How stupid! Let's pretend you aren't one just for to-night!"

"But I don't dance these dances, you see."

"That doesn't matter; I'll teach you."

"Really, now, I can't make a spectacle of myself."

"Nobody wants you to. We'll practise out here in the loggia. Come ahead!"

He was seized by two small, determined hands and drawn this way and that, apparently without the slightest method.

"But I haven't the vaguest idea what to do with my feet," he protested helplessly.

"Don't do anything with them; let them do something with you. Shut your eyes and listen to the music; let it get into your bones, and the first thing you know you will be doing it."

With British solemnity Percival closed his eyes and tried to feel the music. Suddenly he was aware that he was moving in rhythm to the insistent beat of the drum.

"That's it!" cried Bobby, excitedly. "You are doing the Grape-Vine; let yourself go. That's it!"

So intent was he upon keeping out of time instead of in it, that he was guided from the loggia into the ball-room before he knew it. His awakening came when a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder. He stopped indignantly. The ship's doctor had not only arrested the development of his new-found talent, but was actually dancing off with his partner!

"Most unwarrantable impertinence!" he stormed to the Scotchman, whom he joined at the door. "Clapped me on the shoulder quite as if I had been under suspicion for felony. Almost expected to hear him say, 'My man, you're wanted.' I shall demand satisfaction of the cub the instant the dance is over."

The Scotchman laughed. "He meant ye no harm. It's a trick they have in the States of changing partners. Watch the game; ye'll see."

"And I can take any man's partner away by simply laying my hand on his shoulder?"

This changed the complexion of things considerably. The Honorable Percival spent the remainder of the evening laying his hand upon the shoulder of whosoever claimed Bobby for a dance.

It was remarkable with what facility he acquired the new steps. He knew that he had a good figure and that he carried it with distinction. The admiring glances that followed his entrance into any public assembly made him pleasantly aware of the fact. To-night, however, if any of his thoughts turned upon himself, they were but stragglers from the main army that marched in solid file under Bobby's banner.

During the intervals when he could not dance with her he retired to the loggia, and thought about her. She was not only the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, but the most adorably responsive. He likened her poetically to an Æolian harp and himself to the wind.

No one, not even his fond mother, had accepted him so implicitly at his own valuation as Bobby. Other women frequently insisted upon their own interpretations. He looked upon this as a form of disloyalty. Lady Hortense had once decried his taste for Tennyson; that, and her persistent use of a perfume which he disliked had been symbolic to him of a difference in temperament. Bobby had no predilections for perfumes or poets. She blindly accepted his judgment of all things, and if she sometimes failed to conform to his wishes, it was through forgetfulness and not opposition. He gloried in her plasticity; after all, was it not among the chief of feminine virtues?

While he paced the loggia and thus recounted her charms, he became increasingly intolerant of the fact that his Æolian harp was being swept by various winds. He thirsted for a complete monopoly of her smiles, of all her glances, grave and gay, of the thousand and one little looks and gestures that he had quite unwarrantably come to look upon as his own.

After all, why should he consider his family before himself? Why should he ever go back to England at all? It was the most daring thought he had ever had, and for a moment it staggered him. Lines from "Locksley Hall" began ringing in his ears:

Of course, he told himself, Bobby wasn't exactly a savage woman; but then again she was, you know, in a way. She was from the point of view of Sister Cordelia. But why consult Sister Cordelia at all? Why not seek some "blossomed bower in dark purple spheres of sea"? Not in China; it was too beastly smelly. Not in Japan; mosquitos. Not in America; never! It should be some South Sea Island, where they would dwell, "the world forgetting, and by the world forgot."

Once an Englishman slips the leash of his sentiment and quotes even a line of poetry, it carries him far afield. In this case it led Percival a headlong chase over walls of tradition and barriers of pride. He begrudged every moment that must elapse before he had Bobby to himself, and told her of his great decision.

"But isn't it too late to be taking a walk?" she protested when the last dance was over, and he was urging a turn on the bund.

"Just a breath of fresh air. Won't take five minutes. Where's your wrap?"

"I haven't any but my steamer-coat. I don't suppose you could stand that."

"You will wear the Manchu coat," said Percival, with tender authority; "there's every reason why you should."

XIII

PERCIVAL PROCRASTINATES

The little park that stretched between the bund and the water-front way deserted save for a few isolated couples who had strolled out from the hotel to cool off after the heat of the ball-room. Percival and Bobby found a vine-clad summer-house where they could watch the tall ships riding at anchor in the bay, their riding-lights swaying amid the more stationary stars. Closer to the water were the bobbing lights of the sleeping junks, while behind them twinkled the myriad lights of that vast native city the hem of whose garment they were merely touching.

The setting was all that Percival's fastidious taste could desire, but now that he had "the time and the place and the loved one all together," he found an epicure's delight in lingering over his rapture. This hour had a flavor, a bouquet, that no other hour would ever contain, and he preferred to sip it deliriously moment by moment. He coaxed her to talk at length about himself, to put into her own words the impressions he had made upon her mentally, morally, and physically. He never tired of beholding in the mirror of her mind the very images he had placed before it.

"You are a perfect little wizard!" he exclaimed in ecstasy. "You read me like a book. Quite sure you aren't cold!"

"No," said Bobby; "but I'm getting awfully sleepy."

His pride took instant alarm. After all, it was not the hour to press his suit. He rose, and tenderly drew the shining folds of her wrap about her.

"I shall take you in. Can't allow you to lose your roses, you know. To-morrow I must take better care of you."

Bobby gave a sleepy little laugh.

"What is it!" he asked.

"I was just thinking how mad we are making the captain. He wouldn't speak to me all through dinner."

"I shall have a word to say to the captain to-morrow that will quite change his attitude."

"What sort of a word?"

"Can't you guess?"

Before Bobby could answer, their attention was arrested by angry shouts in the street behind them. A drunken sailor, evidently from an English gunboat, was in fierce altercation with his jinrikisha-man, and was announcing to the world, in language compounded of all the oaths in his vocabulary, that he wished to be condemned to Hades if any more pumpkin-headed, pig-tailed Chinks got another bob out of his pocket.

Percival was for hurrying his precious charge past the belligerents and into the hotel, but Bobby insisted upon seeing the end of it.

"That sailor is fixing to get into trouble," she cried. "He doesn't know what he is doing or saying."

"I dare say he'll manage very well," said Percival, urging her on.

"But he isn't managing, He's making the coolie furious. Don't let him hit at him like that! See, he's caught hold of his queue!"

The patient Chinaman had received the supreme insult, and in a second he had flashed a short knife from his belt, and was lunging at the stupid, upturned face of the half-recumbent sailor.

Percival sprang forward and seized the descending arm. He was not quick enough to arrest the force of the blow, but he succeeded in deflecting its course, and the blade, which would have given the sailor a decent burial at sea, sharply grazed Percival's wrist, and buried itself in the side of the jinrikisha.

It was all so quickly done that by the time a crowd collected and the big Sikh policeman arrived in his yellow clothes and huge striped turban Percival had got Bobby safely into the hotel lobby. He was exasperated beyond measure that this very evening, of all, should have ended in his participation in a vulgar street brawl. So far he had succeeded in keeping Bobby from knowing that he was wounded, but the beastly scratch was bleeding furiously, and he had to keep his hand behind, him to prevent her from seeing it.

They hurried through the empty lobby and down the long corridor that led to the elevator. Bobby was full of excitement over the recent adventure and the part Percival had played in it.

"My, but you were quick!" she said as they went up on the elevator. "I had just time to shut my eyes and open them again, and it was all over."

"Nothing to speak of," said Percival, twisting his handkerchief tighter around his throbbing wrist.

"But you don't mind my being proud of you, do you?" asked Bobby as the elevator stopped at his floor. "When I see a man show courage like that, I just feel as if—as if I'd like to squeeze him."

Percival's left hand shot out and caught hers to his lips.

"Why, Mr. Hascombe!" she cried "What's the matter with your arm? No, I mean the other one."

"A mere scratch."

"But your sleeve's cut, and the handkerchief is all blood-stained. Why didn't you tell me you were hurt?"

"I assure you it is nothing. Quite all right in the morning. Breakfast with you at nine. Happy dreams!"

Bobby was not to be so easily put off. She insisted upon following him out of the elevator and inspecting the wound,

"Why, it's dreadful!" she cried. "And it must have been bleeding like this for five minutes! Quick! Where's your room?"

"But really, my dear girl, I can't allow this. You must get back into the lift straight away and go up to your room."

"I sha'n't do anything of the sort until you get Judson or a doctor or somebody."

Percival would have carried his point but for a certain dizziness that had come over him. He put out a hand to steady himself.

"Give me your key!" he heard Bobby saying, and the next instant his door was flung open, the lights were switched on, and he was staggering blindly toward the couch at the foot of the bed. Then there was a furious ringing of bells, a long wait, followed by the appearance of a sleepy Chinese night watchman.

"Gentleman hurt!" cried Bobby. "Get a doctor! Send somebody up here quick! Do you understand?"

"Me savvy," said the Chinaman, calmly. "Doctor no belong Astor Hotel. All same belong Oliental Hotel."

"I don't care where he belongs," Bobby cried impatiently. "Get him over the telephone. And send somebody up from the office, do you understand?"

"Oh, yes, me savvy," he said, with the imperturbability of his race.

Percival heard the man's footsteps dying in the distance, and he made a mighty effort to rouse himself.

"Silly of me to behave like this. Quite all right now, thanks. You must run away before any one comes."

"Why?" demanded Bobby.

"Looks rather queer your being here like this at midnight, you know. Wouldn't compromise you for the world."

Bobby was standing at his dressing-table searching for something, and she wheeled upon him indignantly.

"This is no time to be thinking about looks. You lie down and stop talking. Hold your arm up straight, like that. Keep it that way until I come."

He did as she told him, grasping his right wrist in his left hand; but the bright-red blood continued to spurt through his fingers, showing no signs of abating.

"If I could only find a string!" cried Bobby, tossing the contents of his bag this way and that. "Here's the strap on your toilet-case; perhaps it'll do."

She knelt beside the couch, and, ripping his sleeve to the elbow, hastily wrapped the leather thong twice about his forearm and slipped the strap into the buckle.

"I've got to hurt you," she said resolutely, pulling with nervous strength.

"It's most awfully good of you," murmured Percival, wearily, setting his teeth and closing his eyes. Despite the pain, the drowsiness was getting the better of him. He felt himself sinking through space, away from the world, from himself, and, worst of all, from the tender, reassuring voice that kept whispering words of comfort in his ear.

From time to time he was aware of bellboys coming and going, and of apparently futile inquiries for Judson, for the doctor, for Mrs. Weston, for the captain. Then for a long time he was aware of nothing whatever.

A sudden sharp pain in his arm roused him, and he opened his eyes. Bobby still knelt on the floor beside him, unflinchingly holding the strap in place.

"I won't have this!" he cried, struggling to sit up. "Your lips are trembling. It's making you ill."

She laid her free hand on his shoulder.

"Please lie still! They'll be here in a minute. I thought I heard the elevator. It won't be much longer."

There was the sound of hurrying feet in the hall, and the next instant a quick rap at the door. Bobby looked up with great relief as a burly English physician bustled into the room.

"How long have you had the tourniquet on, Madam?" he asked, stripping off his gloves and falling to work.

"The what?" said Bobby.

"The strap on his arm?"

"Oh, since a quarter past twelve." She got up from her knees stiffly, and shook out the shining folds of the Manchu coat. "It was the only thing I could think of; it's what the boys do back home for a rattlesnake bite."

The doctor's glance expressed complete and unqualified approval, but whether it was for her course of action or her very lovely and disturbed appearance it would be hard to say. As she slipped out of the room he turned to Percival.

"It's a severed artery, sir; no special harm done except the loss of blood. A few days' rest—"

"But I am sailing in the morning," murmured Percival. "Must patch me up by that time."

"We shall see. You don't seem to realize that you stood an excellent chance of remaining permanently in Shanghai."

"You mean?"

"I mean that you owe your life to that plucky little wife of yours."

Percival's heart leaped at the word. "She's not my wife, Doctor," he said, smiling feebly, "not yet."