Part 19 (1/2)
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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mspectly 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.