Part 44 (1/2)
”No, I'm not. But I have sense. Peter, I still think, just as I thought that terrible night when you slid down the rope from the _Vandalia_ with me dangling from your neck, that dreadful night on the Whang-poo in the fog, that you're the finest and bravest man on earth.
That's why I let you make love to me on the bund; because--well, because I wanted you to come back!”
”In return,” Peter responded with enthusiasm, ”I have kept you next to my heart all of that time, thinking of you every time I felt discouraged, looking upon you always as a refuge, exactly as you say, when China got the best of me.”
”Has China got the best of you, Peter?”
”It has! I was chased out of the Yellow Empire with a broken arm, by agents of the same man who tried to kidnap you. I removed the splints only this morning. Since I saw you, I have paid a visit to the dreadful red city where you were being taken, escaped, and made my way through India and the Straits Settlements and back to Hong Kong.”
”And they shot you!”
He nodded, and she s.h.i.+vered again, while the fingers against his palm stirred.
”I've put China behind me forever, I hope, and now, a little older, a little wiser, and very weary, I've come to lay the same worthless old heart at your dear little feet!”
”And the worthless old feet will have to kick the dear, big heart aside,” said Eileen sadly. ”Oh, Peter,” she exclaimed, suddenly contrite as she saw the look of pain that came into his face, ”you know I wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world! But I am in earnest, deadly in earnest, Peter! I refuse positively to have you consider me any longer as a poor, helpless, clinging little thing, made only to be petted and protected! I'm not like that, Peter! If you'd only written, I would have told you. You're not afraid of anything in the world; nor am I! I love adventure quite as much as you do, Peter, and the moment you told me, back there in Shanghai, that I must hurry home because it wasn't safe, I made up my mind that I would equip myself to go into some of those wonderful adventures with you! Professor Hodgson, the Chinese language professor, is an expert shot with a revolver, and I've wheedled him into giving me lessons. That's for self-protection. Then the j.a.panese woman who is general chambermaid in my rooming-house is teaching me jiu-jitsu.
”In addition to that, I'm studying for a doctor's degree. When the course is finished I am going to join you in China. We'll invade that dreadful mining city alone, just you and I, and we'll make it the most wonderful place in China! You see, Peter, I intend to be a medical missionary; and you won't have to worry your dear old brain about me the least bit. If you won't take me, I'll go by myself!”
”Sweetheart,” Peter declared with difficulty, ”you are talking through your hat!”
She shrugged and smiled. ”Won't you take me?”
”You know I'd fetch you the man in the moon if you wanted him badly enough!”
”And you'll get that silly old notion of a bungalow for two out of your head?”
”I'll try. It will be a hard job. And, Eileen----”
”Yes, Peter?”
”You don't care about this Professor Hodgson, do you?”
”Oh, no, Peter! Once or twice he's tried to make love, and you could see, couldn't you, how furious he was when we left him?”
”I thought my goose was cooked,” sighed Peter.
”Silly old goose!” said Eileen, squeezing his thumb.
With shaken but immeasurably higher notions of this girl, whose appealing gray eyes suffocated him with longing, Peter helped his charge to alight when the end of the car line was reached, and at her suggestion they tramped through the blossoming California fields, back to the village, talking seriously most of the way upon that ardent subject which lay warmly upon both of their young hearts.
CHAPTER XVII
There was a noticeable ripple when Eileen Lorimer walked into the ballroom that evening in the winsome attire of a Quaker maid, with Professor Hodgson, as Pierrot, on one side, and the tall, commanding figure of Peter the Brazen, in a spick-and-span white-and-gold uniform of the Pacific Mail Line, on the other.
For Peter the Brazen, in any garb, was that type of man at whom any normal woman would have looked twice--or, if only once, just twice as long.
Knotted about his lean waist was a flaunting blue sarong. The sarong gave to his straight, white figure the deft touch of romance. It verified the adventurous blue of his deep-set eyes, and the stubborn outward thrust of his tanned, smooth-shaven jaw.
When the young women of Eileen's acquaintance, to whom had been whispered some of the details of this man's thrilling past, crowded about for introductions, Peter had little difficulty in filling the remaining half of his program.