CHAPTER VI
Sidney Carton, thought Ruth, in pursuit of a sing-song girl! The idea was so incongruous that a cold little smile parted her lips. It seemed as if each time her imagination reached out investingly, an invisible lash beat it back. Still, she knew instinctively that all of Sidney Carton's life had not been put upon the printed page. But to go courting a slave-girl, at the risk of physical hurt! A shudder of distaste wrinkled her shoulders.
She opened the window, for the night was mild, and sat on the floor with her chin resting upon the window-sill. Even the stars were strangers. Where was this kindly world she had drawn so rosily in fancy? Disillusion everywhere. The spinsters were not kind; they were only curious because she was odd and wore a dress thirty years out of date. Later, when they returned home, she would serve as the topic of many conversations. Everybody looked askance at everybody else. To escape one phase of loneliness she had plunged into another, so vast that her courage sometimes faltered.
She recalled how she had stretched out her arms toward the magic blue horizon. Just beyond there would be her heart's desire. And in these crowded four weeks, what had she learned? That all horizons were lies: that smiles and handshakes and goodbyes and welcomes were lies: that there were really no to-morrows, only a treadmill of to-days: and that out of these lies and mirages she had plucked a bitter truth—she was alone.
She turned her cheek to the cold sill; and by and by the sill grew warm and wet with tears. She wanted to stay where she was; but tears were dangerous; the more she wept, the weaker she would become defensively. She rose briskly, turned on the light, and opened Les Misérables to the episode of the dark forest: where Jean Valjean reaches out and takes Cosette's frightful pail from her chapped little hands.
There must be persons tender and loving in this world. There must be real Valjeans, else how could authors write about them? Supposing some day she met one of these astonishing creators, who could make one cry and laugh and forget, who could thrill one with love and anger and tenderness?
Most of us have witnessed carnivals. Here are all our harlequins and columbines of the spoken and written drama. They flash to and fro, they thrill us with expectancy. Then, presto! What a dreary lot they are when the revellers lay aside the motley!
Ruth had come from a far South Sea isle. The world had not passed by but had gone around it in a tremendous half-circle. Many things were only words, sounds; she could not construct these words and sounds into objects; or, if she did, invariably missed the mark. Her education was remarkable in that it was overdeveloped here and underdeveloped there: the woman of thirty and the child of ten were always getting in each other's way. Until she had left her island, what she heard and what she saw were truths. And now she was discovering that even Nature was something of a liar, with her mirages and her horizons.
At the present moment she was living in a world of her own creation, a carnival of brave men and fair women, characters out of the tales she had so newly read for the first time. She could not resist enduing persons she met with the noble attributes of the fictional characters. We all did that in our youth, when first we came upon a fine story; else we were worthless metal indeed. So, step by step, and hurt by hurt, Ruth was learning that John Smith was John Smith and nobody else.
Presently she was again in that dreadful tavern of the Thénardiers. That was the wonder of these stories; one lived in them. Cosette sat under the table, still as a mouse, fondling her pitiful doll. Dolls. Ruth's gaze wandered from the printed page. She had never had a real doll. Instinct had forced her to create something out of rags to satisfy a mysterious craving. But a doll that rolled its eyes and had flaxen hair! Except for the manual labour—there had been natives to fetch and carry—she and Cosette were sisters in loneliness.
Perhaps an hour passed before she laid aside the book. A bobbing lantern, crossing the bridge—for she had not drawn the curtain—attracted her attention. She turned off the light and approached the window. She saw a pole-chair; that would be this Mr. Taber returning. Evidently Ah Cum's luck had held good.
As she stared her eyes grew accustomed to the night; and she discovered five persons instead of four. She remembered Taber's hat. (What was the name he had given her that day?) He was walking beside the chair upon which appeared to be a bundle of colours. She could not see clearly. All at once her heart began to patter queerly. He was bringing the sing-song girl to the hotel!
The strange cortège presently vanished below the window-sill. Curiosity to see what a sing-song girl was like took possession of Ruth's thoughts. She fought the inclination for a while, then surrendered. She was still fully dressed; so all she had to do was to pause before the mirror and give her hair a few pats.
Mirrors. Prior to the great adventure, her mirrors had been the still pools in the rocks after the ebb. She had never been able to discover where her father had hidden his shaving mirror.
When she entered the office a strange scene was presented to her startled gaze. The sing-song girl, her fiddle broken, was beating her forehead upon the floor and wailing: Ai, ai! Ai, ai! Spurlock—or Taber, as he called himself—sat slumped in a chair, staring with glazed eyes at nothing, absolutely uninterested in the confusion for which he was primarily accountable. The hotel manager was expostulating and Ah Cum was replying by a series of expressive shrugs.
"What has happened?" Ruth asked.
"A drunken idea," said Ah Cum, taking his hands out of his sleeves.
"I could not make him understand."
"She cannot stay here," the manager declared.
"Why does she weep?" Ruth wanted to know.
Ah Cum explained. "She considers her future blasted beyond hope. Mr. Taber did not leave all his money in the office. He insisted on buying this girl for two hundred mex. He now tells her that she is free, no longer a slave. She doesn't understand; she believes he has taken a sudden dislike to her. Free, there is nothing left to her but the canal. Until two hours ago she was as contented and as happy as a linnet. If she returns to the house from which we took her, her companions will laugh at her and smother her with ridicule. On this side of the canal she has no place to go. Her people live in Heng-Chow, in the Hu-nan province. It is all very complex. It is the old story of a Westerner meddling with an Eastern custom."
"But why didn't you oppose him?"
"I had to let him have his way, else he might not have returned safely. One cannot successfully argue with a drunken man."
The object of this discussion sat motionless. The voices went into his ears but left no impression of their import. There was, in fact, only one clear thought in his fevered brain: he had reached the hotel without falling down.
The sing-song girl, seeing Ruth, extended her hands and began to chatter rapidly. Ruth made a little gesture, of infinite pity; and this was quickly seized upon by the slant-eyed Chinese girl. She crawled over and caught at the skirts of this white woman who understood.
"What is she saying to me?"
Ah Cum shrugged.
Ruth stared into the painted face, now sundrily cracked by the coursing tears. "But she is saying something to me! What is it?"
The hotel manager, who spoke Cantonese with facility, interpreted. He knew that he could translate literally. "She is saying that you, a woman, will readily understand the position in which she finds herself. She addresses you as the Flower of the Lotus, as the Resplendent Moonbeam."
"Just to give her her freedom?" said Ruth, turning to Ah Cum.
"Precisely. The chair is in the veranda. I will take her back. But of course the money will not be refunded.
"Then take her back," said the manager. "You knew better than to bring her here under the circumstances."
"Well," said Ah Cum, amiably, "when I argued against the venture, he threatened to go wandering about alone, I was most concerned in bringing him back unhurt."
He then spoke authoritatively to the girl. He appeared to thunder dire happenings if she did not obey him without further ado. He picked up the broken fiddle and beckoned. The sing-song girl rose and meekly pattered out of the office into the night.
Ruth crossed over to the dramatist of this tragicomedy and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I understand," she said. Her faith in human beings revived. "You tried to do something that was fine, and … and civilization would not let you."
Spurlock turned his dull eyes and tried to focus hers. Suddenly he burst into wild laughter; but equally as suddenly something strangled the sound in his throat. He reached out a hand gropingly, sagged, and toppled out of the chair to the floor, where he lay very still.
CHAPTER VII
The astonishing collapse of Spurlock created a tableau of short duration. Then the hotel manager struck his palms together sharply, and two Chinese "boys" came pattering in from the dining room. With a gesture which was without any kind of emotional expression, the manager indicated the silent crumpled figure on the floor and gave the room number. The Chinamen raised the limp body and carried it to the hall staircase, up which they mounted laboriously.
"A doctor at once!" cried Ruth excitedly.
"A doctor? What he needs is a good jolt of aromatic spirits of ammonia. I can get that at the bar," the manager said, curtly. He was not particularly grateful for the present situation.
"I warn you, if you do not send for a doctor immediately, you will have cause to regret it," Ruth declared vigorously. "Something more than whisky did that. Why did you let him have it?"
"Let him have it? I can't stand at the elbow of any of the guests and regulate his or her actions. So long as a man behaves himself, I can't refuse him liquor. But I'll call a doctor, since you order it. You'll be wasting his time. It is a plain case of alcoholic stupor. I've seen many cases like it."
He summoned another "boy" and rumbled some Cantonese. Immediately the "boy" went forth with his paper lantern, repeating a cry as he ran—warning to clear the way.
"Have the aromatic spirits of ammonia sent to Mr. Taber's room at once," Ruth ordered. "I will administer it."
"You, Miss Enschede?"—frankly astonished that one stranger should offer succour to another.
"There is nobody else. Someone ought to be with him until the doctor arrives. He may die."
The manager made a negative sign. "Your worry is needless."
"It wasn't the fumes of whisky that toppled him out of his chair.
It was his heart. I once saw a man die after collapsing that way."
"You once saw a man die that way?" the manager echoed, his recent puzzlement returning full tide. Hartford, Connecticut; she had registered that address; but there was something so mystifyingly Oriental about her that the address only thickened the haze behind which she moved. "Where?"
"That can wait," she answered. "Please hurry the ammonia;" and Ruth turned away abruptly.
Above she found the two Chinamen squatted at the side of the door. They rose as she approached. She hastened past. She immediately took the pillows from under the head of the man who had two names, released the collar and tie, and arranged the arms alongside the body. His heart was beating, but faintly and slowly, with ominous intermissions. All alone; and nobody cared whether he lived or died.
She was now permitted freely to study the face. The comparisons upon which she could draw were few and confusingly new, mixed with reality and the loose artistic conceptions of heroes in fiction. The young male, as she had actually seen him, had been of the sailor type, hard-bitten, primordial, ruthless. For the face under her gaze she could find but one expression—fine. The shape of the head, the height and breadth of the brow, the angle of the nose, the cut of the chin and jaws, all were fine, of a type she had never before looked upon closely.
She saw now that it was not a dissipated face; it was as smooth and unlined as polished marble, which at present it resembled. Still, something had marked the face, something had left an indelible touch. Perhaps the sunken cheeks and the protruding cheekbones gave her this impression. What reassured her, however, more than anything else, was the shape of the mouth: it was warmly turned. The confirmed drunkard's mouth at length sets itself peculiarly; it becomes the mark by which thoughtful men know him. It was not in evidence here, not a sign of it.
A drunken idea, Ah Cum had called it. And yet it was basically a fine action. To buy the freedom of a poor little Chinese slave-girl! For what was the sing-song girl but a slave, the double slave of custom and of men? Ruth wanted to know keenly what had impelled the idea. Had he been trying to stop the grim descent, and had he dimly perceived that perhaps a fine deed would serve as the initial barrier? A drunken idea—a pearl in the midst of a rubbish heap. That terrible laughter, just before his senses had left him!
Why? Here was a word that volleyed at her from all directions, numbed and bewildered her: the multiple echoes of her own first utterance of the word. Why wasn't the world full of love, when love made happiness? Why did people hide their natural kindliness as if it were something shameful? Why shouldn't people say what they thought and act as they were inclined? Why all this pother about what one's neighbour thought, when this pother was not energized by any good will? Why was truth avoided as the plague? Why did this young man have one name on the hotel register and another on his lips? Why was she bothering about him at all? Why should there be this inexplicable compassion, when the normal sensation should have been repellance? Sidney Carton. Was that it? Had she clothed this unhappy young man with glamour? Or was it because he was so alone? She could not get through the husks to the kernel of what really actuated her.
Somewhere in the world would be his people, perhaps his mother; and it might soften the bitterness, of the return to consciousness if he found a woman at his bedside. More than this, it would serve to mitigate her own abysmal loneliness to pool it temporarily with his.
She drew up a chair and sat down, putting her palm on the damp, cold forehead. A bad sign; it signified that the heart action was in a precarious state. So far he had not stirred; from his bloodless lips had come no sound.
At length the manager arrived; and together he and Ruth succeeded in getting some of the aromatic spirits of ammonia down the patient's throat. But nothing followed to indicate that the liquid had stimulated the heart.
"You see?" Ruth said.
The manager conceded that he saw, that his original diagnosis was at fault. Superimposed was the agitating thought of what would follow the death of this unwelcome guest: confusion, poking authorities, British and American red tape. It would send business elsewhere; and the hotel business in Canton was never so prosperous that one could afford to lose a single guest. Clientèle was of the most transitory character.
And then, there would be the question of money. Would there be enough in the young man's envelope to pay the doctor and the hotel bill—and in the event of his death, enough to ship the body home? So all things pointed to the happy circumstance of setting this young fool upon his feet again, of seeing him hence upon his journey. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
An hour later the doctor arrived; and after a thorough examination, he looked doubtful.
"He is dying?" whispered Ruth.
"Well, without immediate care he would have passed out. He's on the ragged edge. It depends upon what he was before he began this racket. Drink, and no sustaining food. But while there's life there's hope. There isn't a nurse this side of Hong-Kong to be had. I've only a Chinaman who is studying under me; but he's a good sport and will help us out during the crisis. This chap's recovery all depends upon the care he receives."
Out of nowhere Ruth heard her voice saying: "I will see to that."
"Your husband?"
"No. I do not even know his name."
The doctor sent her a sharp, quizzical glance. He could not quite make her out; a new type.
"Taber," said the manager; "Taber is the name."
For some reason she did not then understand, Ruth did not offer the information that Taber had another name.
"This is very fine of you, Miss…."
"Enschede."
"Ah. Well, come back in half an hour. I'll send for Wu Fang. He speaks English. Not a job he may care about; but he's a good sport. The hard work will be his, until we yank this young fellow back from the brink. Run along now; but return in half an hour."
The doctor was in the middle fifties, gray and careworn, but with alert blue eyes and a gentle mouth. He smiled at Ruth as she turned away from the bed, smiled with both his mouth and eyes; and she knew that here would be a man of heart as well as of science. She went out into the hall, where she met the Jedsons in their kimonos.
"What has happened?" asked Sister Prudence. "We've heard coming and going."
"Mr. Taber is very ill."
"Oh." Prudence shrugged. "Well, what can you expect, guzzling poison like that? Are you returning with us to Hong-Kong in the morning?"
"No. I am going to help take care of him," said Ruth, quite ordinarily, as though taking care of unknown derelicts was an ordinary event in her life.
"What?—help take care of him? Why, you can't do that, Miss
Enschede!" was the protest.
"Why can't I?"
"You will be compromised. It isn't as if he were stricken with typhoid or pneumonia or something like that. You will certainly be compromised."
"Compromised." Ruth repeated the word, not in the effect of a query, but ruminantly. "Mutual concessions," she added. "I don't quite understand the application."
Sister Prudence looked at Sister Angelina, who understood what was expected of her. Sister Angelina shook her head as if to say that such ignorance was beyond her.
"Why, it means that people will think evilly of you."
"For a bit of kindness?" Ruth was plainly bewildered.
"You poor child!" Prudence took Ruth's hands in her own. "I never saw the like of you! One has to guard one's actions constantly in this wicked world, if one is a woman, young and pretty. A woman such as I am might help take care of Mr. Taber and no one comment upon it. But you couldn't. Never in this world! Let the hotel people take care of him; it's their affair. They sold him the whisky. Come along with us in the morning. Your father…."
Prudence felt the hands stiffen oddly; and again the thought came to her that perhaps this poor child's father had once been, perhaps still was, in the same category as this Taber.
"It's a fine idea, my child, but you mustn't do it. Even if he were an old friend, you couldn't afford to do it. But a total stranger, a man you never saw twenty-four hours ago! It can't be thought of. It isn't your duty."
"I feel bewildered," said Ruth. "Is it wrong, then, to surrender to good impulses?"
"In the present instance, yes. Can't I make you understand? Perhaps it sounds cruel to you; but we women often have to be cruel defensively. You don't want people to snub you later. This isn't your island, child; it's the great world."
"So I perceive," said Ruth, withdrawing her hands. "He is all alone. Without care he will die."
"But, goodness me, the hotel will take care of him! Why not? They sold him the poison. Besides, I have my doubts that he is so very sick. Probably he will come around to-morrow and begin all over again. You're alone, too, child. I'm trying to make you see the worldly point of view, which always inclines toward the evil side of things."
"I have promised. After all, why should I care what strangers think?" Ruth asked with sudden heat. "Is there no charity? Isn't it understood?"
"Of course it is! In the present instance I can offer it and you can't, or shouldn't. There are unwritten laws governing human conduct. Who invented them? Nobody knows. But woe to those who disregard them! Of course, basically it is all wrong; and sometimes God must laugh at our ideas of rectitude. But to live at peace with your neighbour…."
Ruth brushed her eyes with one hand and with the other signed for the spinster to stop. "No more, please! I am bewildered enough. I understand nothing of what you say. I only know that it is right to do what I do."
"Well," said Sister Prudence, "remember, I tried to save you some future heartaches. God bless you, anyhow!" she added, with a spontaneity which surprised Sister Angelina into uttering an individual gasp. "Good-bye!"
For a moment Ruth was tempted to fling herself against the withered bosom; but long since she had learned repression. She remained stonily in the middle of the hallway until the spinsters' door shut them from view … for ever.
[Illustration: Distinctive Pictures Corporation. The Ragged Edge.
A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]
CHAPTER VIII
Slowly Ruth entered her own room. She opened her suitcase—new and smelling strongly of leather—and took out of it a book, dogeared and precariously held together, bound in faded blue cloth and bearing the inscription: The Universal Handbook. Herein was the sum of human knowledge in essence.
In the beginning it was a dictionary. Words were given with their original meaning, without their ramifications. If you were a poet in need of rhymes, you had only to turn to a certain page. Or, if you were about to embark upon a nautical career, here was all the information required. It also told you how to write on all occasions, how to take out a patent, how to doctor a horse, and who Achates was. You could, if you were ambitious to round out your education, memorize certain popular foreign phrases.
But beyond "amicable agreement in which mutual concessions are made," the word "compromise" was as blank as the Canton wall at night. There were words, then, that ran on indefinitely, with reversals? Here they meant one thing; there, the exact opposite. To be sure, Ruth had dimly been aware of this; but now for the first time she was made painfully conscious of it. Mutual concessions!—and then to turn it around so that it suggested that an act of kindness might be interpreted as moral obloquy!
Walls; queer, invisible walls that receded whenever she reached out, but that still remained between her and what she sought. The wall of the sky, the wall of the horizon, the wall behind which each human being hid—the wall behind which she herself was hiding! If only her mother had lived, her darling mother!
Presently the unhappy puzzlement left her face; and an inward glow began to lighten it. The curtain before one mystery was torn aside, and she saw in reality what lay behind the impulse that had led her into the young man's room. Somebody to whom she would be necessary, who for days would have to depend upon her for the needs of life. An inarticulate instinct which now found expression. Upon what this instinct was based she could not say; she was conscious only of its insistence. Briefly explained, she was as the child who discards the rag baby for the living one. Spurlock was no longer a man before this instinct; he was a child in trouble.
Her cogitations were dissipated by a knock on the door. The visitor was the hotel manager, who respectfully announced that the doctor was ready for her. So Ruth took another step toward her destination, which we in our vanity call destiny.
"Will he live?" asked Ruth.
"Thanks to you," said the doctor. "Without proper medical care, he would have been dead by morning." He smiled at her as he smiled at death, cheerfully.
The doctor's smile is singular; there is no other smile that reaches the same level. It is the immediate inspiration of confidence; it alleviates pain, because we know by that smile that pain is soon to leave us; it becomes the bulwark against our depressive thoughts of death; and it is the promise that we still have a long way to go before we reach the Great Terminal.
In passing, why do we fear death? For our sins? Rather, isn't it the tremendous inherent human curiosity to know what is going to happen to-morrow that causes us to wince at the thought of annihilation? A subconscious resentment against the idea of entering darkness while our neighbour will proceed with his petty affairs as usual?
"It's nip and tuck," said the doctor; "but we'll pull him through. Probably his first serious bout with John Barleycorn. If he had eaten food, this wouldn't have happened. It is not a dissipated face."
"No; it is only—what shall I say?—troubled. The ragged edge."
"Yes. This is also the ragged edge of the world, too. It is the bottom of the cup, where all the dregs appear to settle. But this chap is good wine yet. We'll have him on his way before many days. But … he must want to live in order that the inclination to repeat this incident may not recur. The manager tells me that you are an American. So am I. For ten years I've been trying to go home, but my conscience will not permit me, I hate the Orient. It drives one mad at times. Superstition—you knock into it whichever way you turn. The Oriental accepts my medicines kowtowing, and when my back is turned, chucks the stuff out of the window and burns joss-sticks. I hate this part of the world."
"So do I," replied Ruth.
"You have lived over here?"—astonished.
"I was born in the South Seas and I am on my way to America, to an aunt."
"Well, it's mighty fine of you to break your journey in this fashion—for someone you don't know, a passer-by."
He held out his dry hard hand into which she placed hers. The manager had sketched the girl's character, or rather had interpreted it, from the incidents which had happened since dinner. "You will find her new." New? That did not describe her. Here, indeed, was a type with which he had never until now come into contact—a natural woman. She would be extraordinarily interesting as a metaphysical study. She would be surrendering to all her impulses—particularly the good impulses—many of which society had condemned long since because they entailed too much trouble. Imagine her, putting herself to all this delay and inconvenience for a young wastrel she did not know and who, the moment he got on his feet, would doubtless pass out of her life without so much as Thank you! And it was ten to one that she would not comprehend the ingratitude. To such characters, fine actions are in themselves sufficient.
Perhaps her odd beauty—and that too was natural—stirred these thoughts into being. Ashen blonde, a shade that would never excite the cynical commentary which men applied to certain types of blondes. It would be protective; it would with age turn to silver unnoticeably. A disconcerting gray eye that had a mystifying depth. In the artificial light her skin had the tint and lustre of a yellow pearl. She would be healthy, too, and vigorous. Not the explosive vigour of the north-born, but that which would quietly meet physical hardships and bear them triumphantly.
All this while he was arranging the medicines on the stand and jotting down his instructions on a chart sheet. He had absorbed her in a single glance, and was now defining her as he worked. After a while he spoke again.
"Our talking will not bother him. He will be some time in this comatose state. Later, there will be fever, after I've got his heart pumping. Now, he must have folks somewhere. I'm going through his pockets. It's only right that his people should know where he is and what has happened to him."
But he searched in vain. Aside from some loose coin and a trunk key, there was nothing in the pockets: no mail, no letter of credit, not even a tailor's label. Immediately he grasped the fact that there was drama here, probably the old drama of the fugitive. He folded the garments carefully and replaced them on the chair.
"I'm afraid we'll have to dig into his trunk," he said. "There's nothing in his clothes. Perhaps I ought not to; but this isn't a case to fiddle-faddle over. Will you stand by and watch me?"
The contents of the trunk only thickened the fog. Here again the clothes were minus the labels. All the linen was new and stamped with the mark of Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co., British merchants with branches all over the East. At the bottom of the trunk was a large manila envelope, unmarked. The doctor drew out the contents hopefully.
"By George!" he exclaimed. "Manuscripts! Why, this chap is a writer, or is trying to be. And will you look! His name neatly cut out from each title page. This is clear over my head."
"A novelist?" cried Ruth, thrilling. And yet the secondary emotion was one of suspicion. That a longing of hers should be realized in this strange fashion was difficult to believe: it vaguely suggested something of a trap.
"Or trying to be," answered the doctor. "Evidently he could not destroy these children of his. No doubt they've all been rejected; but he couldn't throw them overboard. I suspect he has a bit of vanity. I'll tell you what. I'll leave these out, and to-morrow you can read them through. Somewhere you may stumble upon a clew to his identity. To-morrow I'll wire Cook's and the American Express in Hong-Kong to see if there is any mail. Taber is the name. What is he—English or American?"
"American. What is a Yale man?"
"Did he say he was a Yale man?"
"He and Ah Cum were talking…."
"I see. Ah Cum is a Yale man and so is this Taber."
"But what is it?"
"An American university. Now, I'll be getting along. Give him his medicine every half hour. Keep his arms down. I'll have my man Wu over here as soon as I can get in touch with him. We'll get this chap on his feet if only to learn what the trouble is."
Downstairs he sought the hotel manager.
"Can you pull him through?" was the anxious question.
"Hope to. The next few hours will tell. But it's an odd case. His name is Taber?"
"Howard Taber."
"Confidentially, I'm assured that he has another."
"What gives you that idea?"
"Well, we could find no letter of credit, no letters, no labels in his clothes—not a single clew to his real identity. And stony broke."
"Not quite," replied the manager. "He left an envelope with some money in it. Perhaps I'd better open it now." The envelope contained exactly five hundred dollars. "How long will he be laid up?"
"Three or four weeks, if he doesn't peg out during the night."
The manager began some computations. "There won't be much left for you," he said.
"That's usual. There never is much left for me. But I'm not worrying about that. The thing is to get the patient on his feet. He may have resources of which we know nothing," the doctor added optimistically.
"But, I say, that girl is a queer one."
"I shouldn't call her queer. She's fine. She'll be mighty interesting to watch."
"For an old bachelor?"
"A human old bachelor. Has she any funds?"
"She must have. She's headed for America. Of course, I don't believe she's what you would call flush. But I'll take care of her bill, if worst comes to worst. Evidently her foresight has saved me a funeral. I'll remember that. But "fine" is the word. How the deuce, though, am I going to account for her? People will be asking questions when they see her; and if I tell the truth, they'll start to snubbing her. You understand what I mean. I don't want her hurt. But we've got to cook up some kind of a story to protect her."
"I hadn't thought of that. It wouldn't do to say that she was from the hospital. She's too pretty and unusual. Besides, I'm afraid her simple honesty will spoil any invented yarn. When anybody is natural, these days, we dub them queer. The contact is disturbing; and we prefer going around the fact to facing it. Aren't we funny? And just as I was beginning to lose faith in human beings, to have someone like this come along! It is almost as if she were acting a rôle, and she isn't. I'll talk to her in the morning, but she won't understand what I'm driving at. Born on a South Sea island, she said."
"Ah! Now I can get a perspective. This is her first adventure. She isn't used to cities."
"But how in the Lord's name was she brought up? There's a queer story back of this somewhere."
The manager extended his hands at large, as if to deny any responsibility in the affair. "Never heard of a sing-song girl; never heard of a geisha! Flower of the Lotus: the sing-song girl called her that."
"The White Hollyhock would fit her better. There is something sensual in the thought of lotus flowers. Hollyhocks make one think of a bright June Sunday and the way to church!"
"Do you suppose that young fool has done anything?"
The doctor shrugged. "I don't know. I shouldn't care to express an opinion. I ought to stay the night through; but I'm late now for an operation at the hospital. Good night."
He departed, musing. How plainly he could see the patch of garden in the summer sunshine and the white hollyhocks nodding above the picket fence!
* * * * *
Ruth sat waiting for the half hour, subconsciously. Her thoughts were busy with the possibilities of this break in her journey. Somebody to depend upon her; somebody to have need of her, if only for a little while. In all her life no living thing had had to depend upon her, not even a dog or a cat. All other things were without weight or consequence before the fact that this poor young man would have to depend upon her for his life. The amazing tonic of the thought!
From time to time she laid her hand upon Spurlock's forehead: it was still cold. But the rise of the chest was quite perceptible now.
From where had he come, and why? An author! To her he would be no less interesting because he was unsuccessful. Stories … love stories: and to-morrow she would know the joy of reading them! It was almost unbelievable; it was too good to be true. It filled her with indefinable fear. Until now none of her prayers had ever been answered. Why should God give particular attention to such a prayer, when He had ignored all others? Certainly there was a trap somewhere.
So, while she watched, distressed and bewildered by her tumbling thoughts, the packet, Canton bound, ruffled the placid waters of the Pearl River. In one of the cabins a man sat on the edge of his narrow bunk. In his muscular pudgy hand was a photograph, frayed at the corners, soiled from the contact of many hands: the portrait of a youth of eighteen.
The man was thick set, with a bright roving eye. The blue jaws suggested courage and tenacity. It was not a hard face, but it was resolute. As he balanced the photograph, a humorous twinkle came into his eyes.
Pure luck! If the boy had grown a moustache or a beard, a needle in the haystack would have been soft work. To stumble upon the trail through the agency of a bottle of whisky! Drank queer; so his bottle had rendered him conspicuous. And now, only twenty-four hours behind him … that is, if he wasn't paddling by on the return route to Hong-Kong or had dropped down to Macao. But that possibility had been anticipated. He would have to return to Hong-Kong; and his trail would be picked up the moment he set foot on the Praya.
Pure luck! But for that bottle of whisky, nobody in the Hong-Kong Hotel would have been able to identify the photograph; and at this hour James Boyle O'Higgins would have been on the way to Yokohama, and the trail lost for ever.
Ho-hum!
CHAPTER IX
The Hong-Kong packet lay alongside the warehouse frontage. Ah Cum patrolled the length of the boat innumerable times, but never letting his glance stray far from the gangplank. This was automatically rather than thoughtfully done; habit. His mind was busy with a résumé of yesterday's unusual events.
The young man desperately ill and the girl taking care of him! Of course, there could be only one ending to such a bout with liquor, and that ending had come perhaps suddenly but not surprisingly. But the girl stood outside the circle of Ah Cum's knowledge—rather profound—of human impulses. Somehow logic could not explain her. Why should she trouble herself over that young fool, who was nothing to her; who, when he eventually sobered up, would not be able to recognize her, or if he did, as something phantasmagorical?
Perhaps he should not apply the term "fool"; "unfortunate" might be the more accurate application. Besides, he was a Yale man. He might be unfortunate, but he would scarcely be a fool. The Yale spirit! Ah Cum smiled whimsically. After fifteen years, to find that peculiarly Occidental attribute—college loyalty—still alive in his heart! A Western idea that had survived; an idea that was merely the flower of youthful enthusiasm!
With his hands still in his sleeves, his chin down in speculation over this phenomenon, he continued his patrol.
"Hey, you!"
Ah Cum stopped and turned. Framed in one of the square ports of the packet was a face which reminded Ah Cum of a Japanese theatrical mask. One side of the face was white with foamy lather and the other ruddy-cheeked and blue-jawed.
"Speak English?" boomed the voice.
"Yes; I speak English."
"Fine! I'll be wanting a guide. Where can I get one?" asked
O'Higgins.
"I am one."
"All right. I'll be with you in a jiffy." Quarter of an hour later O'Higgins stepped off the gangplank. He carried a small bag. "This your regular business?"
"For the present. Will you be wanting me alone?" asked Ah Cum. "I generally take a party."
"What'll it cost to have you all to myself for the day?"
Ah Cum named the sum. He smiled inwardly. Here was one of those Americans who would make him breathless before sundown. The booming voice and the energetic movements spoke plainly of hurry.
"You're on," said O'Higgins. "Now, lead me to a hotel where I can get breakfast. Wait a moment. I've got an address here."
O'Higgins emptied an inside pocket—and purposely let the battered photograph fall to the ground. He pretended to be unaware of the mishap. Politely Ah Cum stooped and recovered the photograph. He rose slowly and extended it. An ancient smile lay on his lips.
"You dropped this, sir."
"Oh. Thanks." O'Higgins, bitten with disappointment, returned the photograph to his pocket. "Victoria; that's the hotel."
"That's but a short distance from here, sir."
"O'Higgins is the name."
"Mr. O'Higgins. Let me take the satchel, sir."
"It's light. I'll tote it myself. Say, ever see any one resembling that photograph I dropped?"
"So many come and go," said Ah Cum, shrugging. "Few stay more than a day. And there are other guides."
"Uh-huh. Well, let's beat it to the hotel. I'm hungry."
"This way, sir."
"What's your name?"
Ah Cum got out his black-bordered card and offered it.
"Aw Come. That sounds kind of funny," said O'Higgins. Smiling, the Chinaman gave the correct pronunciation. "I see. Ah Coom. What's the idea of the black border?"
"My father recently died, sir."
"But that style isn't Oriental."
"I was educated in America."
"Where?"
"At Yale."
"Well, well! This part of the world is jammed full of surprises. I met a Hindu a few weeks ago who was a Harvard man."
"Will you be taking a pole-chair?"
"If that's the racket. I naturally want to do it up in proper style."
"Very well, sir. I'll be outside the hotel at nine-thirty."
Ten minutes' walk brought them to the hotel. As O'Higgins signed the hotel register, his keen glance took in the latest signatures.
"Anywhere," he said in answer to the manager's query. "I'm not particular about rooms. Where's the dining room? And, say, can I have some eggs? This jam-tea breakfast gets my goat."
"Come this way, Mr. O'Higgins," said the manager, amusedly.
O'Higgins followed him into the dining room. That register would be easy to get at; comforting thought. It did not matter in the least what name the young fellow was travelling under; all James Boyle O'Higgins wanted was the letter H. There was something fatalistic about the letter H. The individual twist was always there, even in the cleverest forgeries.
The eggs were all right, but nobody in this part of the world had the least conception of what the coffee bean was for. Always as black and bitter as gall. Coffee à la Turque wasn't so bad; but a guy couldn't soak his breakfast toast in it.
Two women entered and sat down at the adjoining table. After a while one began to talk.
"The manager says there is still some doubt. The change will come to-day. Ah Cum had no business taking him into the city last night. The young man did not know what he was doing or where he was."
O'Higgins extracted a cigar from a pocket and inspected it. Henry Clay, thirteen cents in Hong-Kong and two-bits in that dear old New York. He would never be able to figure out that: all these miles from Cuba, and you could get a perfecto for thirteen cents. He heard the woman talking again.
"I feel guilty, going away and leaving that ignorant child; but our days have been so planned that we dare not change the schedule. Didn't understand me when I said she would be compromised! He won't be able to leave his bed under four weeks; and she said she hadn't much money. If she had once known him, if he were some former neighbour, it would be comprehensible. But an individual she never laid eyes on day before yesterday! And the minute he gets up, he'll head for the public bar. There's something queer about that young man; but we'll never be able to find out what it is. I don't believe his name is Taber."
O'Higgins tore free the scarlet band of his perfecto, the end of which he bit off with strong white teeth, and smiled. You certainly had to hand it to these Chinks. Picked up the photograph, looked at it, handed it back, and never batted an eye! The act was as clear as daylight, but the motive was as profoundly mysterious as the race itself. He hadn't patrolled old Pell Street as a plain clothes man without getting a glimmer of the ancient truth that East is East and West is West. He would have some sport with Mr. Ah Cum before the day was over, slyly baiting him. But what had young Spurlock done for Ah Cum in the space of twenty-four hours that had engaged Ah Cum's loyalty, not only engaged it but put it on guard? For O'Higgins, receiving light from the next table, had no doubt regarding the identity of the subject of this old maid's observations.
A queer game this: he could not move directly as in an ordinary case of man-hunt. He had certain orders from which on no account was he to deviate. But this made the chase all the more exciting. What was the matter with Spurlock that was to keep him in bed three or four weeks? He would dig that out of the hotel manager. Anyhow, there was some pleasurable satisfaction in knowing where the quarry would be for the next three weeks.
There was now a girl in the picture, so it seemed. Well, this was the side of the world where things like that happened. The boy would naturally attract the women, if the women were at all romantic. Good looks, with a melancholy cast, always drew sentimental females. Probably some woman on the loose; they were as thick as flies over here—dizzy blondes. That is, if Spurlock had been throwing money about, which was more than likely.
"As long as I live, I'll never forget that dress of hers," Prudence declared.
"Out of a family album, you said," Angelina reminded her sister.
O'Higgins struck a match and lit his Henry Clay, thereby drawing upon himself the mutual disapproval of the spinsters.
"Beg pardon," he said, "but isn't smoking allowed in the dining room?"
"It probably is," answered Prudence, "but that in no wise mitigates the odiousness of the procedure."
"Plumb in the eye!" said O'Higgins, rising. "I'll tote the odiousness outside."
He was delighted to find the office deserted. He inspected the formidable array of rifles and at length walked over to the register. Howard Taber. From his wallet he brought forth a yellow letter. Quickly he compared the Hs. They were so nearly alike that the difference would be due to a shaky hand. But for perfect satisfaction, he must take a peek into the bedroom. Humph. A crisis of some kind was toward. It might be that the boy had taken one drink too many, or someone had given him knock-out drops. The Oriental waterfronts were rank with the stuff.
But that Chink, Ah Cum! O'Higgins chuckled as he passed into the hall and rested his hand on the newel-post of the staircase. He'd have some fun with that Chinaman before the morning was out.
O'Higgins mounted the stairs, his step extraordinarily light for one so heavy. In the upper hall he paused to listen. There was absolute quiet. Boldly he turned the knob of a certain door and entered. The mock astonishment of his face immediately became genuine.
The brilliant sunshine poured through the window, effecting an oblong block of mote-swimming light. In the midst of this light stood a young woman. To O'Higgins—for all his sordid business he was not insensible to beauty—to O'Higgins she appeared to have entered the room with the light. Above her head was an aura of white fire. The sunshine broke across each shoulder, one lance striking the yellow face of a Chinaman, queueless and dressed in European clothes, the other lance falling squarely upon the face of the man he had journeyed thirteen thousand miles to find. He recognized the face instantly.
There came to O'Higgins the discouraging knowledge that upon the heels of a wonderful chase—blindman's buff in the dark—would come a stretch of dull inaction. He would have to sit down here in Canton and wait, perhaps for weeks. Certainly he could not move now other than to announce the fact that he had found his man.
"I beg pardon," he said. "Got the rooms mixed."
The young woman laid a finger on her lips, cautioning O'Higgins to silence. The detective backed out slowly and closed the door without sound.
Outside in the hall he paused and thoughtfully stroked his smooth blue chin. As he understood it, folks saw in two or three days all there was to see of Canton. After the sights he would have to twiddle his thumbs until the joints cracked. All at once he saw a way out of the threatening doldrums. Some trustworthy Chinaman to watch, for a small bribe, while he, James Boyle O'Higgins, enjoyed himself in Hong-Kong, seeing the spring races, the boxing matches, and hobnobbing with Yankee sailors. Canton was something like a blind alley; unless you were native, you couldn't get anywhere except by returning to Hong-Kong and starting afresh.
Satisfied that he had solved his difficulty, he proceeded to his room. At nine-thirty he climbed into the chair and signified to Ah Cum that he was ready.
"You speak English better than I do," said O'Higgins, as the coolies jogged across the bridge toward the gate. "Where did you pick it up?"
"I believe I told you; at Yale."
O'Higgins laughed. "I'd forgotten. But that explains everything."
"Everything." It was not uttered interrogatively; rather as though Ah Cum did not like the significance of the word and was turning it over and about in speculation.
"Ye-ah," said O'Higgins, jovially. "Why you pretended not to recognize the photograph of the young fellow you toted around these diggings all day yesterday."
Many wrinkles appeared at the corners of Ah Cum's slant eyes—as if the sun hurt—but the rest of his face remained as passive as a graven Buddha's.
CHAPTER X
Ah Cum was himself puzzled. Why hadn't he admitted that he recognized the photograph? What instinct had impelled him swiftly to assume his Oriental mask?
"Why?" asked O'Higgins. "What's the particular dope?"
"If I told you, you would laugh," answered Ah Cum, gravely.
"No; I don't think I'd laugh. You never saw him before yesterday.
Why should you want to shield him?"
"I really don't know."
"Because he said he was a Yale man?"
"That might be it."
"Treated you like a white man there, did they?"
"Like a gentleman."
"All right. I had that coming. I didn't think. But, holy smoke!—the
Yale spirit in…."
"A Chinaman. I wonder. I spent many happy days there. Perhaps it was the recollection of those happy days. You are a detective?"
"Yes. I have come thirteen thousand miles for this young fellow;
I'm ready to go galloping thirteen thousand more."
"You have extradition papers?"
"What sort of a detective do you think I am?" countered O'Higgins.
"Then his case is hopeless."
"Absolutely."
"I'm sorry. He does not look the criminal."
"That's the way it goes. You never can tell." There was a pause.
"They tell me over here that the average Chinaman is honest."
Ah Cum shrugged. "Yes?"
"And that when they give their word, they never break it."
O'Higgins had an idea in regard to Ah Cum.
"Your tone suggests something marvellous in the fact," replied Ah Cum, ironically. "Why shouldn't a Chinaman be honest? Ah, yes; I know. Most of you Americans pattern all Chinese upon those who fill a little corner in New York. In fiction you make the Chinese secretive, criminal, and terrible—or comic. I am an educated Chinese, and I resent the imputations against my race. You Americans laugh at our custom of honouring our ancestors, our many-times great grandfathers. On the other hand, you seldom revere your immediate grandfather, unless he has promised to leave you some money."
"Bull's eye!" piped O'Higgins.
"Of course, there is a criminal element, but the percentage is no larger than that in America or Europe. Why don't you try to find out how the every-day Chinese lives, how he treats his family, what his normal habits are, his hopes, his ambitions? Why don't you come to China as I went to America—with an open mind?"
"You're on," said O'Higgins, briskly. "I'll engage you for four days. To-day is for the sights; the other three days—lessons. How's that strike you?"
"Very well, sir. At least I can give you a glimmer." A smile broke the set of Ah Cum's lips. "I'll take you into a Chinese home. We are very poor, but manage to squeeze a little happiness out of each day."
"And I promise that all you tell me and show me will sink in," replied O'Higgins, frankly interested. "I'm a detective; my ears and eyes have been trained to absorb all I see and all I hear. When I absorb a fact, my brain weighs the fact carefully and stores it away. You fooled me this morning; but I overheard two old maids talking about you and the young man."
"What has he done?"
"What did he have to drink over here last night?"
"Not even water. No doubt he has been drinking for days without eating substantially, and his heart gave out."
"What happened?"
Ah Cum recounted the story of the sing-song girl. "I had to give in to him. You know how stubborn they get."
"Surest thing you know. Bought the freedom of a sing-song girl; and all the while you knew you'd have to tote the girl back. But the Yale spirit!"
Ah Cum laughed.
"I've got a proposition to make," said O'Higgins.
"So long as it is open and above board."
"It's that, but it interferes with the college spirit stuff. Would a hundred dollars interest you?"
"Very much, if I can earn it without offending my conscience."
"It won't. Here goes. I've come all these miles for this young fellow; but I don't cotton to the idea of lallygagging four weeks in this burg. I've an idea it'll be that long before the chap gets up. My proposition is for you to keep an eye on him, and the moment he puts on his clothes to send me a telegram, care of the Hong-Kong Hotel. Understand me. Double-crossing wouldn't do any good. For all you might know, I might have someone watching you. This time he couldn't get far. He will have to return to Hong-Kong."
"Not necessarily. There is a railroad."
"He won't be taking that. The only safe place for him is at sea; and if he had kept to the sea, I shouldn't have found him so easily. Well, what about it?"
"I accept."
"As an honest Chinaman?"—taking out the offensiveness of the query by smiling.
"As an honest Chinaman."
O'Higgins produced his wallet. "Fifty now and fifty when I return."
"Agreed. Here are the jade carvers. Would you like to see them at work?"
"Lead on, Macduff!"
Ah Cum raised the skirt of his fluttering blue silk robe and stored the bill away in a trouser wallet. It was the beginning and the end of the transaction. When he finally telegraphed his startling information to Hong-Kong, it was too late for O'Higgins to act. The quarry had passed out into the open sea.
* * * * *
From the comatose state, Spurlock passed into that of the babbling fever; but that guarding instinct which is called subconsciousness held a stout leash on his secret. He uttered one word over and over, monotonously:
"Fool! … Fool!"
But invariably the touch of Ruth's hand quieted him, and his head would cease to roll from side to side. He hung precariously on the ragged edge, but he hung there. Three times he uttered a phrase:
"A djinn in a blue-serge coat!"
And each time he would follow it with a chuckle—the chuckle of a soul in damnation.
Neither the American Express nor Cook's had received mail for Howard Taber; he was not on either list. This was irregular. A man might be without relatives, but certainly he would not be without friends, that is to say, without letters. The affair was thick with sinister suggestions. And yet, the doctor recalled an expression of the girl's: that it was not a dissipated face, only troubled.
The whole affair interested him deeply. That was one of the compensations for having consigned himself to this part of the world. Over here, there was generally some unusual twist to a case. He would pull this young fellow back; but later he knew that he would have to fight the boy's lack of will to live. When he recovered his mental faculties, he would lie there, neutral; they could save him or let him die, as they pleased; and the doctor knew that he would wear himself out forcing his own will to live into this neutrality. And probably the girl would wear herself out, too.
To fight inertia on the one hand and to study this queer girl on the other. Any financial return was inconsiderable against the promise of this psychological treat. The girl was like some north-country woodland pool, penetrated by a single shaft of sunlight—beautifully clear in one spot and mysteriously obscured elsewhere. She would be elemental; there would be in her somewhere the sleeping tigress. The elemental woman was always close to the cat: as the elemental man was always but a point removed from the wolf.
It was so arranged that Ruth went on duty after breakfast and remained until noon. The afternoon was her own; but from eight until midnight she sat beside the patient. At no time did she feel bodily or mental fatigue. Frequently she would doze in her chair; but the slightest movement on the bed aroused her.
At luncheon, on the third day, a thick-set man with a blue jaw smiled across his table at her. She recognized him as the man who had blundered into the wrong room.
"How is the patient?" he asked.
"He will live," answered Ruth.
"That's fine," said O'Higgins. "I suppose he'll be on his feet any day now."
"No. It will take at least three weeks."
"Well, so long as he gets on his feet in the end. You're a friend of the young man?"
"If you mean did I know him before he became ill, no."
"Ah." O'Higgins revolved this information about, but no angle emitted light. Basically a kindly man but made cynical and derisive by sordid contacts, O'Higgins had almost forgotten that there was such a thing as unselfishness. The man or woman who did something for nothing always excited his suspicions; they were playing some kind of a game. "You mean you were just sorry for him?"
"As I would be for any human being in pain."
"Uh-huh." For the life of him, O'Higgins could not think of anything else to say. Just because she was sorry for that young fool! "Uh-huh," he repeated, rising and bowing as he passed Ruth's table. He wished he had the time to solve this riddle, for it was a riddle, and four-square besides. Back in the States young women did not offer to play the Good Samaritan to strange young fools whom Jawn D. Barleycorn had sent to the mat for the count of nine: unless the young fool's daddy had a bundle of coin. Maybe the girl was telling the truth, and then again, maybe she wasn't.
The situation bothered him considerably. Things happened frequently over here that wouldn't happen in the States once in a hundred years. Who could say that the two weren't in collusion? When a chap like Spurlock jumped the traces, cherchez la femme, every time. He hadn't gambled or played the horses or hit the booze back there in little old New York….
"Aw, piffle!" he said, half aloud and rather disgustedly, as he stepped out into the sunshine. "My old coco is disintegrating. I've bumped into so much of the underside that I can't see clean any more. No girl with a face like that…. And yet, dang it! I've seen 'em just as innocent looking that were prime vipers. Let's get to Hong-Kong, James, and hit the high spots while there is time."
He signalled to Ah Cum; and the two of them crossed on foot into the city.
It was not until the morning of the fifth day that the constant vigil was broken. The patient fell into a natural and refreshing sleep. So Ruth found that for a while her eyes were free. She tiptoed to the stand and gathered up the manuscripts which she carried to a chair by the window. Since the discovery of them, she had been madly eager to read these typewritten tales. Treasure caves to explore!
All through these trying days she had recurrently wondered what this strange young man would have to say that Dickens and Hugo had not already said. That was the true marvel of it. No matter how many books one read, each was different, as each human being was different. Some had the dignity and the aloofness of a rock in the sea; and others were as the polished pebbles on the sands—one saw the difference of pebble from pebble only by close scrutiny. Ruth, without suspecting it, had fallen upon a fundamental truth: that each and every book fitted into the scheme of human moods and intelligence.
Ruth was at that stage where the absorption of facts is great, but where the mental digestion is not quite equal to the task. She was acquiring truths, but in a series of shocks rather than by the process of analysis.
There were seven tales in all—short stories—a method of expression quite strange to her, after the immense canvases of Dickens and Hugo. When she had finished the first tale, there was a sense of disappointment. She had expected a love story; and love was totally absent. It was a tale of battle, murder, and sudden death on the New York waterfront. Sordid; but that was not Ruth's term for it; she had no precise commentary to offer.
From time to time she would come upon a line of singular beauty or a paragraph full of haunting music; and these would send her rushing on for something that never happened. Each manuscript was like the other: the same lovely treatment of an unlovely subject. Abruptly would come the end. It was as if she had come upon the beautiful marble façade of a fairy palace, was invited to enter, and behind the door—nothing.
She did not realize that she was offering criticisms. The word "criticism" had no concrete meaning to her then; no more than "compromise." Some innate sense of balance told her that something was wrong with these tales. She could not explain in words why they disappointed her or that she was disappointed.
Two hours had come and gone during this tantalizing occupation. At the least, the tales had the ability to make her forget where she was; which was something in their favour.
"My coat!"
Ruth did not move but stared astonishedly at the patient.
"My coat!" he repeated, his glance burning into hers.
[Illustration: Distinctive Pictures Corporation. The Ragged Edge.
A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]