They arrived at Penang early Monday morning. Elsa decided that Warrington should take her and Martha on a personally conducted tour of the pretty town. As they left for shore he produced a small beautiful blue feather; he gave it to Elsa with the compliments of Rajah; and she stuck it in the pugree of her helmet.
"This is not from the dove of peace."
"Its arch-enemy, rather," he laughed. "I wish I had the ability to get as furious as that bird. It might do me a world of good."
"How long is it since you were here?"
"Four years," he answered without enthusiasm. He would not have come ashore at all but for the fact that Elsa had ordered the expedition.
There was no inclination to explore the shops; so they hired a landau and rode about town, climbed up to the quaint temple in the hills, and made a tour of the botanical gardens.
"Isn't it delicious!" murmured Elsa, taking in deep breaths of the warm spice-laden air. Since her visit to the wonderful gardens at Kandy in Ceylon, she had found a new interest in plants and trees.
She thoroughly enjoyed the few hours on land, even to the powwow Warrington had with the unscrupulous driver, who, at the journey's end, substituted one price for another, despite his original bargain. It was only a matter of two shillings, but Warrington stood firm. It had of necessity become a habit with him to haggle and then to stand firm upon the bargain made. There had been times when half an hour's haggling had meant breakfast or no breakfast. It never entered into his mind what Elsa's point of view might be. The average woman would have called him over-thrifty. All this noise over two shillings! But to Elsa it was only the opening of another door into this strange man's character. What others would have accepted as penuriousness she recognized as a sense of well-balanced justice. Most men, she had found, were afflicted with the vanity of spending, and permitted themselves to be imposed on rather than have others think that money meant anything to them. Arthur would have paid the difference at once rather than have stood on the pier wrangling. As they waited for the tender that was to convey them back to the ship, Elsa observed a powerful middle-aged man, gray-haired, hawk-faced, steel-eyed, watching her companion intently. Then his boring gaze traveled over her, from her canvas-shoes to her helmet. There was something so baldly appraising in the look that a flush of anger surged into her cheeks. The man turned and said something to his companion, who shrugged and smiled. Impatiently Elsa tugged at Warrington's sleeve.
"Who is that man over there by the railing?" she asked in a very low voice. "He looks as if he knew you."
"Knew me?" Warrington echoed. The moment he had been dreading had come. Some one who knew him! He turned his head slowly, and Elsa, who had not dropped her hand, could feel the muscles of his arm stiffen under the sleeve. He held the stranger's eye defiantly for a space. The latter laughed insolently if silently. It was more for Elsa's sake than for his own that Warrington allowed the other to stare him down. Alone, he would have surrendered to the Berserk rage that urged him to leap across the intervening space and annihilate the man, to crush him with his bare hands until he screamed for the mercy he had always denied others. The flame passed, leaving him as cold as ashes. "I shall tell you who he is later; not here."
For the second time since that night on the Irrawaddy, Elsa recorded a disagreeable sensation. It proved to be transitory, but at the time it served to establish a stronger doubt in regard to her independence, so justifiable in her own eyes. It might be insidiously leading her too far away from the stepping-off place. The unspoken words in those hateful eyes! The man knew Warrington, knew him perhaps as a malefactor, and judged his associates accordingly. She thus readily saw the place she occupied in the man's estimation. She experienced a shiver of dread as she observed that he stepped on board the tender. She even heard him call back to his friend to expect him in from Singapore during the second week in March. But the dread went away, and pride and anger grew instead. All the way back to the ship she held her chin in the air, and from time to time her nostrils dilated. That look! If she had been nearer she was certain that she would have struck him across the face.
"There will be no one up in the bow," said Warrington. "Will you go up there with me?"
After a moment's hesitation, she nodded.
The Lascars, busy with the anchor-chains, demurred; but a word and a gesture from the Sahib who had turned the hose on a drunken man convinced them that the two would not be in the way. A clatter of steel against steel presently followed, the windlass whined and rattled, and Elsa saw the anchor rise slowly from the deeps, bringing up a blur of muddy water; and blobs of pale clay dripped from the anchor-flukes. A moment after she felt the old familiar throb under her feet, and the ship moved slowly out of the bay.
"Do you know that that man came aboard?"
"I know it." The wide half-circle of cocoanut palms grew denser and lower as they drew away. "This is the story. It's got to be told. I should have avoided it if it had been possible. He is the owner of the plantation. Oh, I rather expected something like this. It's my run of luck. I was just recovering from the fever. God knows how he found out, but he did. It was during the rains. He told me to get out that night. Didn't care whether I died on the road or not. I should have but for my boy James. The man sent along with us a poor discarded woman, of whom he had grown tired. She died when we reached town. I had hardly any money. He refused to pay me for the last two months, about fifty pounds. There was no redress for me. There was no possible way I could get back at him. Miss Chetwood, I took money that did not belong to me. It went over gaming-tables. Craig. I ran away. Craig knows and this man Mallow knows. Can you not see the wisdom of giving me a wide berth?"
"Oh, I am sorry!" she cried.
"Thanks. But you see: I am an outcast. To-night, not a soul on board will be in ignorance of who I am and what I have done. Trust Craig and Mallow for that. Thursday we shall be in Singapore. You must not speak to me again. Give them to understand that you have found me out, that I imposed on your kindness."
"That I will not do."
"Act as you please. There are empty chairs at the second-class table, among the natives. And now, good-by. The happiest hours in ten long years are due to you." He took off his helmet and stepped aside for her to pass. She held out her hand, but he shook his head. "Don't make it harder for me."
"Mr. Warrington, I am not a child!"
"To me you have been the Angel of Kindness; and the light in your face I shall always see. Please go now."
"Very well." A new and unaccountable pain filled her throat and forced her to carry her head high. "I can find my way back to the other deck."
He saw her disappear down the first ladder, reappear up the other, mingle with the passengers and vanish. He then went forward to the prow and stared down at the water, wondering if it held rest or pain or what.
During the concluding days of the voyage Elsa had her meals served on deck. She kept Martha with her continually, promenaded only early in the morning and at night while the other passengers were at dinner. This left a clear deck. She walked quickly, her arm in Martha's, literally propelling her along, never spoke unless spoken to, and then answered in monosyllables. Her thoughts flew to a thousand and one things: home, her father, episodes from school-life; toward anything and everywhere like a land-bird lost at sea, futilely and vainly in the endeavor to shut out the portrait of the broken man. In the midst of some imaginary journey to the Sabine Hills she would find herself asking: What was he doing, of what was he thinking, where would he go and what would he do? She hated night which, no longer offering sleep, provided nothing in lieu of it, and compelled her to remain in the stuffy cabin. She was afraid.
Early Wednesday morning she passed Craig and Mallow; but the two had wit enough to step aside for her and to speak only with their eyes. She filled Craig with unadulterated fear. Never had he met a woman such as this one. He warned Mallow at the beginning, without explaining in detail, that she was fearless and dangerous. And, of course, Mallow laughed and dragged along the gambler whenever he found a chance to see Elsa at close range.
"There's a woman. Gad! that beach-comber has taste."
"I tell you to look out for her," Craig warned again. "I know what I'm talking about."
"What's she done; slapped your face?"
"That kind of woman doesn't slap. Damn it, Mallow, she rammed a hat-pin into me, if you will know! Keep out of her way."
Mallow whistled. "Oho! You probably acted like a fool. Drinking?"
Craig nodded affirmatively.
"Thought so. Even a Yokohama bar-maid will fight shy of a boozer. I'm going to meet her when we get to Singapore, or my name's not Mallow."
Craig laughed with malice. "I hope she sticks the pin into your throat. It will take some of the brag out of you. Think because you've got picturesque gray hair and are as strong as a bull, that all the women are just pining for you. Say, let's go aft and hunt up the chap. I understand he's taken up quarters in the second-cabin."
"Doesn't want to run into me. All right; come on. We'll stir him up a little and have some fun."
They found Warrington up in the stern, sitting on the deck, surrounded by squatting Lascars, some Chinamen and a solitary white man, the chief engineer's assistant. The center of interest was Rajah, who was performing his tricks. Among these was one that the bird rarely could be made to perform, the threading of beads. He despised this act as it entailed the putting of a blunt needle in his beak. He flung it aside each time Warrington handed it to him. But ever his master patiently returned it. At length, recognizing that the affair might be prolonged indefinitely, Rajah put two beads on the thread and tossed it aside. The Lascars jabbered, the Chinamen grinned, and the chief engineer's assistant swore approvingly.
"How much'll you take for him?"
"He's not for sale," answered Warrington.
The parrot shrilled and waddled back to his cage.
"Fine business for a whole man!"
Warrington looked up to meet the cynical eyes of Mallow. He took out his cutty and fired it. Otherwise he did not move nor let his gaze swerve. Mallow, towering above him, could scarcely resist the temptation to stir his enemy with the toe of his boot. His hatred for Warrington was not wholly due to his brutal treatment of him. Mallow always took pleasure in dominating those under him by fear. Warrington had done his work well. He had always recognized Mallow as his employer, but in no other capacity: he had never offered to smoke a pipe with him, or to take a hand at cards, or split a bottle. It had not been done offensively; but in this attitude Mallow had recognized his manager's disapproval of him, an inner consciousness of superiority in birth and education. He had with supreme satisfaction ordered him off the plantation that memorable night. Weak as the man had been in body, there had been no indication of weakness in spirit.
Occultly Warrington read the desire in the other's eyes. "I shouldn't do it, Mallow," he said. "I shouldn't. Nothing would please me better than to have a good excuse to chuck you over the rail. Upon a time you had the best of me. I was a sick man then. I'm in tolerable good health at present."
"You crow, I could break you like a pipe-stem."
Mallow rammed his hands into his coat pockets, scowling contemptuously. He weighed fully twenty pounds more than Warrington.
Crow! Warrington shrugged. In the East crow is a rough synonym for thief. "You're at liberty to return to your diggings forward with that impression," he replied coolly. "When we get to Singapore," rising slowly to his height until his eyes were level with Mallow's, "when we get to Singapore, I'm going to ask you for that fifty pounds, earned in honest labor."
"And if I decline to pay?" truculently.
"We'll talk that over when we reach port. Now," roughly, "get out. There won't be any baiting done to-day, thank you."
The chief engineer's assistant, a stocky, muscular young Scot, stepped forward. He knew Mallow. "If there is, Mr. Warrington, I'm willing to have a try at losing my job."
"Cockalorem!" jeered Mallow. Craig touched his sleeve, but he threw off the hand roughly. He was one of the best rough and tumble fighters in the Straits Settlements. "You thieving beach-comber, I don't want to mess up the deck with you, but I'll cut your comb for you when we get to port."
Warrington laughed insolently and picked up the parrot-cage. "I'll bring the comb. In fact, I always carry it." Not a word to Craig, not a glance in his direction. Warrington stepped to the companionway and went below.
The chief engineer's assistant, whistlingBide Awee, sauntered forward.
Craig could not resist grinning at Mallow's discomfiture. "Wouldn't break, eh?"
"Shut your mouth! The sneaking dock-walloper, I'll take the starch out of him when we land! Always had that high and mighty air. Wants folks to think he's a gentleman."
"He was once," said Craig. "No use giving you advice; but he's not a healthy individual to bait. I'm no kitten when it comes to scrapping; but I haven't any desire to mix things with him." The fury of the man who had given him the ducking was still vivid. He had been handled as a terrier handles a rat.
"Bah!"
"Bah as much as you please. I picked you out of the gutter one night in Rangoon, after roughing it with half a dozen Chinamen, and saved your wad. I've not your reach or height, but I can lay about some. He'll kill you. And why not? He wouldn't be any worse off than he is."
"I tell you he's yellow. And with a hundred-thousand in his clothes, he'll be yellower still."
A hundred thousand. Craig frowned and gazed out to sea. He had forgotten all about the windfall. "Let's go and have a peg," he suggested surlily.
Immediately upon obtaining her rooms at Raffles Hotel in Singapore (and leaving Martha there to await the arrival of the luggage, an imposing collection of trunks and boxes and kit-bags), Elsa went down to the American Consulate, which had its offices in the rear of the hotel. She walked through the outer office and stood silently at the consul-general's elbow, waiting for him to look up. She was dressed in white, and in the pugree of her helmet was the one touch of color, Rajah's blue feather. With a smile she watched the stubby pen crawl over some papers, ending at length with a flourish, dignified and characteristic. The consul-general turned his head. His kindly face had the settled expression of indulgent inquiry. The expression changed swiftly into one of delight.
"Elsa Chetwood!" he cried, seizing her hands. "Well, well! I am glad to see you. Missed you when you passed through to Ceylon. Good gracious, what a beautiful woman you've turned out to be! Sit down, sit down!" He pushed her into a chair. "Well, well! When I saw you last you were nineteen."
"What a frightful memory you have! And I was going to my first ball. You used the same adjective."
"Is there a better one? I'll use it if there is. You've arrived just in time. I am giving a little dinner to the consuls and their wives to-night, and you will add just the right touch; for we are all a little gray at the temples and some of us are a trifle bald. You see, I've an old friend from India in town to-day, and I've asked him, too. Your appearance evens up matters."
"Oh; then I'm just a filler-in!"
"Heavens, no! You're the most important person of the lot, though Colonel Knowlton …"
"Colonel Knowlton!" exclaimed Elsa.
"That's so, by George! Stupid of me. You came down on the same boat. Fine! You know each other."
Elsa straightened her lips with some difficulty. She possessed the enviable faculty of instantly forming in her mind pictures of coming events. The little swelling veins in the colonel's nose were as plain to her mind's eye as if he really stood before her. "Have him take me in to dinner," she suggested.
"Just what I was thinking of," declared the unsuspecting man. "If any one can draw out the colonel, it will be you."
"I'll do my best." Elsa's mind was full of rollicking malice.
Contemplatively he said: "So you've been doing the Orient alone? You are like your father in that way. He was never afraid of anything. Your mental make-up, too, I'll wager is like his. Finest man in the world."
"Wasn't he? How I wish he could have always been with me! We were such good comrades. They do say I am like father. But why is it, every one seems appalled that I should travel over here without male escort?"
"The answer lies in your mirror, Elsa. Your old nurse Martha is no real protection."
"Are men so bad, then?"
"They are less restrained. The heat, the tremendous distances, the lack of amusements, are perhaps responsible. The most difficult thing in the world to amuse is man. By the way, here's a packet of letters for you."
"Thanks." Elsa played with the packet, somberly eying the superscriptions. The old disorder came back into her mind. Three of the letters were from Arthur. She dreaded to open them.
"Now, I'll expect you to come to the apartments and have tea at five."
"Be glad to. Only, don't have any one else. I just want to visit and talk as I used to."
"I promise not to invite anybody."
"I must be going, then. I'm not sure of my tickets to Hongkong."
"Go straight to the German Lloyd office. The next P. & O. boat is booked full. Don't bother to go to Cook's. Everybody's on the way home now. Go right to the office. I'll have my boy show you the way. Chong!" he called. A bright-eyed young Chinese came in quickly and silently from the other room. "Show lady German Lloyd office. All same quick."
"All light. Lady come."
"Until tea."
In the outer office she paused for a moment or so to look at the magazines and weeklies from home. The Chinese boy, grinning pleasantly, peered curiously at Elsa's beautiful hands. She heard some one enter, and quite naturally glanced up. The newcomer was Mallow. He stared at her, smiled familiarly and lifted his helmet.
Elsa, with cold unflickering eyes, offered his greeting no recognition whatever. The man felt that she was looking through him, inside of him, searching out all the dark comers of his soul. He dropped his gaze, confused. Then Elsa calmly turned to the boy.
"Come, Chong."
There was something in the manner of her exit that infinitely puzzled him. It was the insolence of the well-bred, but he did not know it. To offset his chagrin and confusion, he put on his helmet and passed into the private office. She was out of his range of understanding.
Mallow was an American by birth but had grown up in the Orient, hardily. In his youth he had been beaten and trampled upon, and now that he had become rich in copra (the dried kernels of cocoanuts from which oil is made), he in his turn beat and trampled. It was the only law he knew. He was without refinement, never having come into contact with that state of being long enough to fall under its influence. He was a shrewd bargainer; and any who respected him did so for two reasons, his strength and his wallet. Such flattery sufficed his needs. He was unmarried; by inclination, perhaps, rather than by failure to find an agreeable mate. There were many women in Penang and Singapore who would have snapped him up, had the opportunity offered, despite the fact that they knew his history tolerably well. Ordinarily, when in Penang and Singapore, he behaved himself, drank circumspectly and shunned promiscuous companions. But when he did drink heartily, he was a man to beware of.
He hailed the consul-general cordially and offered him one of his really choice cigars, which was accepted.
"I say, who was that young woman who just went out?"
The consul-general laid down the cigar. The question itself was harmless enough; it was Mallow's way of clothing it he resented. "Why?" he asked.
"She's a stunner. Just curious if you knew her, that's all. We came down on the same boat. Hanged if I shouldn't like to meet her."
"You met her on board?"
"I can't say that. Rather uppish on the steamer. But, do you know her?" eagerly.
"I do. More than that, I have always known her. She is the daughter of the late General Chetwood, one of the greatest civil-engineers of our time. When he died he left her several millions. She is a remarkable young woman, a famous beauty, known favorably in European courts, and I can't begin to tell you how many other accomplishments she has."
"Well, stump me!" returned Mallow. "Is that all straight?"
"Every word of it," with a chilliness that did not escape a man even so impervious as Mallow.
"Is she a free-thinker?"
"What the devil is that? What do you mean?"
"Only this, if she's all you say she is, why does she pick out an absconder for a friend, a chap who dare not show his fiz in the States? I heard the tale from a man once employed in his office back in New York. A beach-comber, a dock-walloper, if there ever was one."
"Mallow, you'll have to explain that instantly."
"Hold your horses, my friend. What I'm telling you is on the level. She's been hobnobbing with the fellow all the way down from the Irrawaddy, so I'm told. Never spoke to any one else. Made him sit at her side at table and jabbered Italian at him, as if she didn't want others to know what she was talking about. I know the man. Fired him from my plantation, when I found out what he was. Can't recall his name just now, but he is known out here as Warrington; Parrot & Co."
The consul-general was genuinely shocked.
"You can't blame me for thinking things," went on Mallow. "What man wouldn't? Ask her about Warrington. You'll find that I'm telling the truth, all right."
"If you are, then she has made one of those mistakes women make when they travel alone. I shall see her at tea and talk to her. But I do not thank you, Mallow, for telling me this. A finer, loyaler-hearted girl doesn't live. She might have been kind out of sympathy."
Mallow bit off the tip of his cigar. "He's a handsome beggar, if you want to know."
"I resent that tone. Better drop the subject before I lose my temper. I'll have your papers ready for you in the morning." The consul-general caught up his pen savagely to indicate that the interview was at an end.
"All right," said Mallow good-naturedly. "I meant no harm. Just naturally curious. Can't blame me."
"I'm not blaming you. But it has disturbed me, and I wish to be alone to think it over."
Mallow lounged out, rather pleased with himself. His greatest pleasure in life was in making others uncomfortable.
The consul-general bit the wooden end of his pen and chewed the splinters of cedar. He couldn't deny that it was like Elsa to pick up some derelict for her benefactions. But to select a man who was probably wanted by the American police was a frightful misfortune. Women had no business to travel alone. It was all very well when they toured in parties of eight or ten; but for a charming young woman like Elsa, attended by a spinster companion who doubtless dared not offer advice, it was decidedly wrong. And thereupon he determined that her trip to Yokohama should find her well guarded.
"I beg your pardon," said a pleasant voice.
The consul-general had been so deeply occupied by his worry that he had not noticed the entrance of the speaker. He turned impatiently. He saw a tall blond man, bearded and tanned, with fine clear blue eyes that met his with the equanimity of the fearless.
The consul-general had, figuratively, a complete assortment of masks, such as any thorough play-actor might have, in more or less constant demand, running the gamut from comedy to tragedy. Some of these masks grew dusty between ships, but could quickly be made presentable. Sometimes, when large touring parties came into port, he confused his masks, being by habit rather an absent-minded man. But he possessed a great fund of humor, and these mistakes gave him laughable recollections for days.
He saw before him an exquisite, as the ancient phrase goes, backed by no indifferent breed of manhood. Thus, he believed that here was a brief respite (as between acts) in which the little plastic hypocrisies could be laid aside. The pleasant smile on his high-bred face was all his own.
"And what may I do for you, sir?" He expected to be presented with letters of introduction, and to while away a half-hour in the agreeable discussion of mutual acquaintance.
"I should like a few minutes' private talk with you," began the well-dressed stranger. "May I close the door?" The consul-general, with a sense of disappointment, nodded. The blond man returned and sat down. "I don't know how to begin, but I want you to copy this cablegram and send it under your own name. Here it is; read it."
So singular a request filled the consul-general with astonishment. Rather mechanically he accepted the slip of paper, adjusted his glasses, and read—
"The Andes Construction Company, New York: A former employee of yours wishes to make a restitution of eight thousand dollars, with interest to date. He dares not give his name to me, but he wishes to learn if this belated restitution will lift the ban against his returning to America and resuming his citizenship. Reply collect."
"This is an extraordinary request to make to me, sir."
"I know it."
"But why bring it to me?"
"Could I possibly offer that to the cable operator? Without name or address? No; I could not do it without being subjected to a thousand questions, none of which I should care to answer. So I came to you. Passing through your hands, no one will question it. Will you do this favor for a poor unfortunate devil?"
Oddly enough, the other could not get away from his original impression. The clothes, the way the man wore them, the clarity of his eyes, the abundant health that was expressed by the tone of the skin, derided such a possibility as the cablegram made manifest.
He forced the smile back to his lips. "Are you sure you're not hoaxing me?"
"No. I am the victim of the hoax," enigmatically. "If one may call the quirks of fate by the name of hoax," the stranger added. "Will you send it?"
The years he had spent in the consular service had never brought before him a situation of this order. He did not know exactly what to do. He looked out of the window, into the hotel-court, at the sky which presently would become overcast with the daily rain-clouds. By and by he remembered the man waiting patiently at his elbow.
"What is your name?"
"My real name, or the one by which I am known here?"
"Your real one."
"I'd rather not give that until I hear from New York."
"Well, that is reasonable."
"I am known out here by the name of Warrington."
Warrington. The puzzlement vanished from the older man's face, and his eyes became alert, renewing from another angle their investigation of the stranger. Warrington. So this was the man? He could understand now. Who could blame a girl for making a mistake when he, a seasoned veteran, had been beguiled by the outward appearance of the man? Mallow was right. He was a handsome beggar.
"I promise to send this upon one condition."
"I accept without question," readily.
"It is that you must keep away from Elsa Chetwood, now and hereafter. You made her acquaintance under false pretenses."
"I deny that. Not under false pretenses." How quickly things went about! "Let me tell you how I met her."
The consul-general listened; he listened with wonder and interest, and more, with conviction that the young man had been perfectly honest. But the knowledge only added to his growing alarm. It would not be difficult for such a man to win the regard of any young woman.
"And you told her what you had done?"
"Yes."
"Your first misstep?" touching the cablegram.
"My first and only misstep. I was a careless, happy-go-lucky young fool." The sky outside also had attraction for Warrington. A thousand times a fool!
"How long ago did this happen?"
"Ten years this coming April."
"And now, after all this time, you wish to go back?"
"I have wished to go back many times, but never had money enough. I have plenty now. Oh, I made it honestly," smiling. "In oil, at Prome. Here's a cutting from a Rangoon paper."
The other read it carefully. It was romance, romance such as he liked to read in his books, but which was mighty bewildering to have at his elbow in actuality. What a life the man must have led! And here he was, with no more evidence of the conflict than might be discerned in the manliness of his face and the breadth and depth of his shoulders. He dropped the cutting, impatiently.
"Don't you believe it?"
"Believe it? Oh, this? Yes," answered the consul-general. "What I can not believe is that I am awake. I can not quite make two and two equal four."
"Which infers?"
"That I can not … Well, you do not look like a man who would rob his employer of eight thousand dollars."
"Much obliged."
"Parrot & Co. It's odd, but I recollect that title. You were at Udaipur during the plague."
Warrington brightened. "So that's got about? I happened to be there, working on the prince's railway."
"I will send the cable at once. You will doubtless hear from New York in the morning. But you must not see Miss Chetwood again."
"You will let me bid her good-by? I admire and respect her more than any other woman. She does not know it, for as yet her soul is asleep; but she is one of those few women God puts on earth for the courage and comfort of man. Only to say good-by to her. Here in this office, if you wish."
"I agree to that."
"Thank you again." Warrington rose.
"I am genuinely sorry for you. If they say no, what will you do?"
"Go back just the same. I have another debt to cancel."
"Call in the morning. I'll let you know what the charges are."
"I forgot. Here are twenty pounds. You can return the balance when I call. I am very grateful."
"By the way, there is a man here by the name of Mallow," began the consul-general.
"Yes," interrupted Warrington, with a smile which was grim and cruel. "I expect to call upon him. He owes me something like fifty pounds, and I am going to collect it." Then he went out.
The consul-general dropped Mallow's perfecto into the waste-basket and lighted his pipe. Once more he read the cablegram. The Andes Construction Company. What a twist, what an absurd kink in the skein! Nearly all of Elsa's wealth lay bound up in this enormous business which General Chetwood had founded thirty odd years before. And neither of them knew!
"I am not a bad man at heart," he mused, "but I liked the young man's expression when I mentioned that bully Mallow."
He joined his family at five. He waved aside tea, and called for a lemon-squash.
"Elsa, I am going to give you a lecture."
"Didn't I tell you?" cried Elsa to the wife. "I felt in my bones that he was going to say this very thing." She turned to her old-time friend. "Go on; lecture me."
"In the first place, you are too kind-hearted."
"That will be news to my friends. They say I have a heart of ice."
"And what you think is independence of spirit is sometimes indiscretion."
"Oh," said Elsa, becoming serious.
"A man came into my office to-day. He is a rich copra-grower from Penang. He spoke of you. You passed him on going out. If I had been twenty years younger I'd have punched his ugly head. His name is Mallow, and he's not a savory chap."
Elsa's cheeks burned. She never would forget the look in that man's eyes. The look might have been in other men's eyes, but conventionality had always veiled it; she had never seen it before.
"Go on;" but her voice was unsteady.
"Somewhere along the Irrawaddy you made the acquaintance of a young man who calls himself Warrington, familiarly known as Parrot & Co. I'll be generous. Not one woman in a thousand would have declined to accept the attentions of such a man. He is cultivated, undeniably good-looking, a strong man, mentally and physically."
Elsa's expression was now enigmatical.
"There's not much veneer to him. He fooled me unintentionally. He was quite evidently born a gentleman, of a race of gentlemen. His is not an isolated case. One misstep, and the road to the devil."
The consul-general's wife sent a startled glance at Elsa, who spun her sunshade to lighten the tension of her nerves.
"He confessed frankly to me this morning that he is a fugitive from justice. He wishes to return to America. He recounted the circumstances of your meeting. To me the story appeared truthful enough. He said that you sought the introduction because of his amazing likeness to the man you are going home to marry."
"That is true," replied Elsa. "Uncle Jim, I have traveled pretty much over this world, and I never met a gentleman if Warrington is not one." There was unconscious belligerency in her tone.
"Ah, there's the difficulty which women will never be made to understand. Every man can, at one time or another, put himself upon his good behavior. Underneath he may be a fine rascal."
"Not this one," smiling. "He warned me against himself a dozen times, but that served to make me stubborn. The fault of my conduct," acidly, "was not in making this pariah's acquaintance. It lies in the fact that I had nothing to do with the other passengers, from choice. That is where I was indiscreet. But why should I put myself out to gain the good wishes of people for whom I have no liking; people I shall probably never see again when I leave this port?"
"You forget that some of them will be your fellow passengers all the way to San Francisco. My child, you know as well as I do that there are some laws which the Archangel Michael would have to obey, did he wish to inhabit this earth for a while."
"Poor Michael! And if you do not obey these laws, people talk."
"Exactly. There are two sets of man-made laws. One governs the conduct of men and the other the conduct of women."
"And a man may break any one of these laws, twist it, rearrange it to suit his immediate needs. On the other hand, the woman is always manacled."
"Precisely."
"I consider it horribly unfair."
"So it is. But if you wish to live in peace, you must submit."
"Peace at that price I have no wish for. This man Mallow lives within the pale of law; the other man is outside of it. Yet, of the two, which would you be quickest to trust?"
The consul-general laughed. "Now you are appealing not to my knowledge of the world but to my instinct."
"Thanks."
"Is there any reason why you should defend Mr. Warrington, as he calls himself?"
The consul-general's wife desperately tried to catch her husband's eye. But either he did not see the glance or he purposely ignored it.
"In defending Mr. Warrington I am defending myself."
"A good point."
"My dear friend," Elsa went on, letting warmth come into her voice once more, "my sympathy went out to that man. He looked so lonely. Did you notice his eyes? Can a man look at you the way he does and be bad?"
"I have seen Mallow dozens of times. I know him to be a scoundrel of sorts; but I doubt if bald sunlight could make him blink. Liars have first to overcome the flickering and wavering of the eyes."
"He said that."
"Who, Warrington?" puzzled.
"He said almost the same thing. Would he say that if he were a liar?"
"I haven't accused him of being that. Indeed, he struck me as a truthful young man. But he confessed to me that ten years ago he robbed his employer of eight thousand dollars. By the way, what is the name of the firm your father founded?"
"The Andes Construction Company. Do you think we could find him something to do there?" eagerly. "He builds bridges."
"I shouldn't advise that. But we have gone astray. You ought not to see him again."
"I have made up my mind not to."
"Then pardon me for all this pother. I know what is in your heart, Elsa. You want to help the poor devil back to what he was; but he'll have to do that by himself."
"It is a hateful world!" Elsa appealed to the wife.
"It is, Elsa, dear. But James is right."
"You'll get your balance," said the guardian, "when you reach home. When's the wedding?"
"I'm not sure that I'm going to be married." Elsa twirled the sunshade again. "I really wish I had stayed at home. I seem all topsy-turvy. I could have screamed when I saw the man standing on the ledge above the boat that night. No; I do not believe I shall marry. Fancy marrying a man and knowing that his ghost was at the same time wandering about the earth!" She rose and the sunshade described a half-circle as she spoke. "Oh, bother with it all! Dinner at eight, in the big dining-room."
"Yes. But the introductions will be made on the cafe-veranda. These people out here have gone mad over cock-tails. And look your best, Elsa. I want them to see a real American girl to-night. I'll have some roses sent up to you."
Elsa had not the heart to tell him that all interest in his dinner had suddenly gone from her mind; that even the confusion of the colonel no longer appealed to her bitter malice. She knew that she was going to be bored and miserable. Well, she had promised. She would put on her best gown; she would talk and laugh and jest because she had done these things many times when her heart was not in the play of it.
When she was gone, the consul-general's wife said: "Poor girl!"
Her husband looked across the room interestedly. "Why do you say that?"
"I am a woman."
"That phrase is the City of Refuge. All women fly to it when confronted by something they do not understand."
"Oh, but I do understand. And that's the pity of it."
Elsa sought the hotel rickshaw-stand, selected a sturdy coolie, and asked to be run to the botanical gardens and back. She wanted to be alone, wanted breathing-space, wanted the breeze to cool her hot cheeks. For she was angry at the world, angry at the gentle consul-general, above all, angry at herself. To have laid herself open to the charge of indiscretion! To have received a lecture, however kindly intended, from the man she loved and respected next to her father! To know that persons were exchanging nods and whispers behind her back!
It was a detestable world. It was folly to be honest, to be kind, to be individual, to have likes and dislikes, unless these might be regulated by outsiders. Why should she care what people said? She did not care. What made her furious was the absolute stupidity of their deductions. She had not been indiscreet; she had been merely kindly and human; and if they wanted to twist and misconstrue her actions, let them do so.
She hated the word "people." It seemed to signify all the useless inefficient persons in the world, massed together after the manner of sheep and cattle, stupidest of beasts, always wanting something and never knowing what; not an individual among them. And they expected her to conform with their ways! Was it necessary for her to tell these meddlers why she had sought the companionship of a self-admitted malefactor?… Oh, that could not be! If evil were to be found in such a man, then there was no good anywhere. What was one misstep? Was it not written that all of us should make one or more? And surely this man had expiated his. Ten years in this wilderness, ten long lonely years. How many men would have stood up against the temptations of this exile? Few, if any, among the men she knew. And they criticized her because she was sorry for the man. Must she say to them: "Dear people, I spoke to this man and engaged his companionship because I was sorry for him; because he looked exactly like the man I have promised to marry!" It was ridiculous. She laughed. The dear people!
Once or twice she saw inwardly the will-o'-the-wisp lights of her soul. But resolutely she smothered the sparks and bolstered up the pitiful lie.
The coolie stopped suddenly.
"Go on," she said.
But the coolie smiled and wiped his shaven poll. Elsa gazed at the hotel-veranda in bewilderment. Slowly she got out of the rickshaw and paid the fare. She had not the slightest recollection of having seen the gardens. More than this, it was a quarter to seven. She had been gone exactly an hour.
"Perhaps, after all," she thought, "I am hopeless. They may be right; I ought to have a guardian. I am not always accountable for what I do."
She dressed leisurely and with calculation. She was determined to convince every one that she was a beautiful woman, above suspicion, above reproach. The spirit within her was not, however, in direct accord with this determination. Malice stirred into life again; and she wanted to hurt some one, hurt deeply. It was only the tame in spirit who, when injured, submitted without murmur or protest. And Elsa, only dimly aware of it, was mortally hurt.
"Elsa," said Martha, "that frown will stay there some day, and never go away."
Elsa rubbed it out with her finger. "Martha, do you recall that tiger in the cage at Jaipur? How they teased him until he lost his temper and came smashing against the bars? Well, I sympathize with that brute. He would have been peaceful enough had they let him be. Has Mr. Warrington called to-day?"
"No."
"Well, if he calls to-morrow, say that I am indisposed."
Martha evinced her satisfaction visibly. The frown returned between Elsa's eyes and remained there until she went down-stairs to join the consul-general and his wife. She found some very agreeable men and women, and some of her natural gaiety returned. At a far table on the veranda she saw Craig and Mallow in earnest conversation.
She nodded pleasantly to the colonel as the head boy came to announce that dinner was served. Anglo-Indian society had so many twists and ramifications that the situation was not exactly new to the old soldier. True, none had confronted him identical to this. But he had not disciplined men all these years without acquiring abundant self-control. The little veins in his nose turned purple, as Elsa prophesied they would, but there was no other indication of how distasteful the moment was to him. He would surely warn the consul-general, who doubtless was innocent enough.
They sat down. The colonel blinked. "Fine passage we had coming down."
"Was it?" returned Elsa innocently.
The colonel reached for an olive and bit into it savagely. He was no fool. She had him at the end of a blind-alley, and there he must wait until she was ready to let him go. She could harry him or pretend to ignore him, as suited her fancy. He was caught. Women, all women, possessed at least one attribute of the cat. It was digging in the claw, hanging by it, and boredly looking about the world to see what was going on. At that moment the colonel recognized the sting of the claw.
Elsa turned to her right and engaged the French consul discursively: the vandalism in the gardens at Versailles, the glut of vehicles in the Bois at Paris, the disappearing of the old landmarks, the old Hotel de Sevigne, now the most interestingmuséein France. Indeed, Elsa gradually became the center of interest; she drew them intentionally. She brought a touch of home to the Frenchman, to the German, to the Italian, to the Spaniard; and the British official, in whose hands the civil business of the Straits Settlements rested, was charmed to learn that Elsa had spent various week-ends at the home of his sister in Surrey.
And when she admitted that she was the daughter of General Chetwood, the man to whom the Indian government had cause to be grateful, upon more than one occasion, for the solidity of his structures, the colonel realized definitely the seriousness of his crucifixion. He sat stiffer and stiffer in his chair, and the veins in his nose grew deeper and deeper in hue. He saw clearly that he would never understand American women. He had committed an outrageous blunder. He, instead of dominating, had been dominated by three faultfinding old women; and, without being aware of the fact, had looked at things from their point of view. A most inconceivable blunder. He would not allow that he was being swayed less by the admission of his unpardonable rudeness on board than by the immediate knowledge that Elsa was known to the British official's sister, a titled lady who stood exceedingly high at court.
"Miss Chetwood," he said, lowering his voice for her ears only.
Elsa turned, but with the expression that signified that her attention was engaged elsewhere.
"Yes?"
"I am an old man. I am sixty-two; and most of these sixty-two I have lived roughly; but I am not too old to realize that I have made a fool of myself."
Interest began to fill Elsa's eyes.
"It has been said," he went on, keeping the key, "that I am a man of courage, but I find that I need a good deal of that just now. I have been rude to you, and without warrant, and I offer you my humble apologies." He fumbled with his cravat as if it had suddenly tightened. "Will you accept?"
"Instantly." Elsa understood the quality of courage that had stirred the colonel.
"Thanks."
But ruthlessly: "I should, however, like your point of view in regard to what you consider my conduct."
"Is it necessary?"
"I believe it would be better for my understanding if you made a full confession." She did not mean to be relentless, but her curiosity was too strong not to press her advantage.
"Well, then, over here as elsewhere in the world there are standards by which we judge persons who come under our notice."
"Agreed. Individuality is not generally understandable."
"By the mediocre, you might have added. That's the difficulty with individuality; it refuses to be harnessed by mediocrity, and mediocrity holds the whip-hand, always. I represent the mediocre."
"Oh, never!" said Elsa animatedly. "Mediocrity is always without courage."
"You are wrong. It has the courage of its convictions."
"Rather is it not stubbornness, wilful refusal to recognize things as they are?"
He countered the question with another. "Supposing we were all individuals, in the sense you mean? Supposing each of us did exactly as he pleased? Can you honestly imagine a more confusing place than this world would be? The Manchurian pony is a wild little beast, an individual if ever there was one; but man tames him and puts to use his energies. And so it is with human individuality. We of the mediocre tame it and harness and make it useful to the general welfare of humanity. And when we encounter the untamable, in order to safeguard ourselves, we must turn it back into the wilderness, an outlaw. Indeed, I might call individuality an element, like fire and water and air."
"But who conquer fire and water and air?" Elsa demanded, believing she had him pocketed.
"Mediocrity, through the individual of this or that being. Humanity in the bulk is mediocre. And odd as it seems, individuality (which is another word for genius) believes it leads mediocrity. But it can not be made to understand that mediocrity ordains the leadership."
"Then you contend that in the hands of the stupid lies the balance of power?"
"Let us not say stupid, rather the unimaginative, the practical and the plodding. The stubbornest person in the world is one with an idea."
"Do you honestly insist that you are mediocre?"
"No," thoughtfully. "I am one of those stubborn men with ideas. I merely insist that I prefer to accept the tenets of mediocrity for my own peace and the peace of others."
Elsa forgot those about her, forgot her intended humiliation of the man at her side. He denied that he was an individual, but he was one, as interesting a one as she had met in a very long time. She, too, had made a blunder. Quick to form opinions, swift to judge, she stood guilty with the common lot, who permit impressions instead of evidence to sway them. Here was a man.
"We have gone far afield," she said, a tacit admission that she could not refute his dissertations. This knowledge, however, was not irksome.
"Rather have we not come to the bars? Shall we let them down?"
"Proceed."
"In the civil and military life on this side of the world there are many situations which we perforce must tolerate. But these, mind you, are settled conditions. It is upon new ones which arise that we pass judgment. I knew nothing about you, nothing whatever. So I judged you according to the rules."
Elsa leaned upon her elbows, and she smiled a little as she noted that the purple had gone from his nose and that it had resumed its accustomed rubicundity.
"I go on. A woman who travels alone, who does not present letters of introduction, who …"
"Who attends strictly to her own affairs. Go on."
"Who is young and beautiful."
"A sop! Thanks!"
Imperturbably he continued: "Who seeks the acquaintance of men who do not belong, as you Americans say."
"Not men; one man," she corrected.
"A trifling difference. Well, it arouses a disagreeable word, suspicion. For look, there have been examples. It isn't as if yours were an isolated case. There have been examples, and these we apply to such affairs as come under our notice."
"And it doesn't matter that you may be totally wrong?"
His prompt answer astonished her. "No, it does not matter in the least. Simmered down, it may be explained in a word, appearances. And I must say, to the normal mind …"
"The mediocre mind."
"To the normal and mediocre mind, appearances were against you. Observe, please, that I did not know I was wrong, that you were a remarkable young woman. My deductions were made from what I saw as an outsider. On the Irrawaddy you made the acquaintance of a man who came out here a fugitive from justice. After you made his acquaintance, you sought none other, in fact, repelled any advances. This alone decided me."
"Then you were decided?" To say that this blunt exposition was not bitter to her taste, that it did not act like acid upon her pride, would not be true. She was hurt, but she did not let the hurt befog her sense of justice. From his point of view the colonel was in no fault. "Let me tell you how very wrong you were indeed."
"Doubtless," he hastily interposed, "you enveloped the man in a cloud of romance."
"On the contrary, I spoke to him and sought his companionship because he was nothing more nor less than a ghost."
"Ah! Is it possible that you knew him in former times?"
"No. But he was so like the man at home; so identical in features and build to the man I expected to go home to marry.…"
"My dear young lady, you are right. Mediocrity is without imagination, stupid, and makes the world a dull place indeed. Like the man you expect to marry! What woman in your place would have acted otherwise? And I have made my statements as bald and brutal as an examining magistrate! Instead of one apology I offer a thousand."
"I accept each and all of them. More, I believe that you and I could get on capitally. I can very well imagine the soldier you used to be. I am going to ask you what you know about Mr. Warrington."
"This, that he is not a fit companion for a young woman like yourself; that a detractable rumor follows hard upon his heels wherever he goes. I learned something about him in Rangoon. He is known to the riff-raff as Parrot & Co., and I don't know what else. All of us on shipboard learned his previous history."
"Ah!" She was quite certain of the historian. "And not from respectable quarters, either."
"If I had been elderly and without physical attractions?" Elsa inquired sarcastically.
"We are dealing with human nature, mediocrity, and not with speculation. It is in the very nature of things to distrust that which we do not understand. You say, old and without physical attractions. Beauty is of all things most drawing. We crowd about it, we crown it, we flatter it. The old and unattractive we pass by. If I had not seen you here to-night, heard you talk, saw in a kind of rebellious enchantment over your knowledge of the world and your distinguished acquaintance, I should have gone to my grave believing that my suspicions were correct. I dare say that I shall make the same mistake again."
"But do not judge so hastily."
"That I promise."
"Did you learn among other things what Mr. Warrington had done?"
"Yes. A sordid affair. Ordinary peculations that were wasted over gaming-tables."
Warrington had told her the truth. At least, the story told by others coincided with his own. But what was it that kept doubt in her mind? Why should she not be ready to believe what others believed, what the man himself had confessed? What was it to her that he looked like Arthur, that he was guilty or innocent?
"And his name?" She wondered if the colonel knew that also.
"Warrington is assumed. His real name is Paul Ellison."
"Paul Ellison." She repeated it slowly. Her voice did not seem her own. The table, the lights, the faces, all receded and became a blur.