Parrot & Co. Part 9

"I despise men," she volunteered.

"I am beginning to believe that few of them are worth a thought. Those who aren't fools are knaves."

"Are you sure of your judgment in regard to this man Warrington? How can you tell that he is any different from that man Craig?"

"He is different, that is all. This afternoon he will come to tea. I shall want you to be with us. Remember, not a word of this disgraceful affair."

"Ah, Elsa, I am afraid; I am more afraid of Warrington than of a man of Craig's type."

"And why?"

"It sounds foolish, but I can't explain. I am just afraid of him."

"Bother! You talk like an old maid."

"And I am one, by preference."

"We are always quarreling, Martha; and it doesn't do either of us any good. When you oppose me, I find that that is the very thing I want to do. You haven't any diplomacy."

"I would gladly cultivate it if I thought it would prove effectual,"

was the retort.

"Try it," advised Elsa dryly.

Warrington's appearance that afternoon astonished Elsa. She had naturally expected some change, but scarcely such elegance. He was, without question, one of the handsomest men she had ever met. He was handsomer than Arthur because he was more manly in type. Arthur himself, an exquisite in the matter of clothes, could not have improved upon this man's taste or selection. What a mystery he was! She greeted him cordially, without restraint; but for all that, a little shiver stirred the tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck.

"The most famous man in Rangoon to-day," she said, smiling.

"So you have read that tommy-rot in the newspaper?"

They sat on her private balcony, under an awning. Rain was threatening. Martha laid aside her knitting and did her utmost to give her smile of welcome an air of graciousness.

"I shouldn't call it tommy-rot," Elsa declared. "It was not chance.

It was pluck and foresight. Men who possess those two attributes get about everything worth having."

"There are exceptions," studying the ferrule of his cane.

"Is there really anything you want now and can't have?"

Martha looked at her charge in dread and wonder.

"There is the moon," he answered. "I have always wanted that. But there it hangs, just as far out of reach as ever."

"Two lumps?"

"None. My sugar-tooth is gone."

Elsa had heard that hard drinkers disliked sweets. Had this been the Gordian knot he had cut?

"Perhaps, after all," she said, "you would prefer a peg, as you call it over here."

"No, thanks. I was never fond of whisky. Sometimes, when I am dead tired, and have to go on working, I take a little."

So that wasn't it. Elsa's curiosity to-day was keenly alive. She wanted to ask a thousand questions; but the ease with which the man wore his new clothes, used his voice and eyes and hands, convinced her more than ever that the subtlest questions she might devise would not stir him into any confession. That he had once been a gentleman of her own cla.s.s, and more, something of an exquisite, there remained no doubt in her mind. What had he done? What in the world had he done?

On his part he regretted the presence of Martha; for, so strongly had this girl worked upon his imagination that he had called with the deliberate intention of telling her everything. But he could not open the gates of his heart before a third person, one he intuitively knew was antagonistic.

Conversation went afield: pictures and music and the polished capitals of the world; the latest books and plays. The information in regard to these Elsa supplied him. They discussed also the problems of the day as frankly as if they had been in an Occidental drawing-room. Martha's tea was bitter. She liked Arthur, who was always charming, who never surprised or astonished anybody, or shocked them with unexpected phases of character; and each time she looked at Warrington, Arthur seemed to recede. And when the time came for the guest to take his leave, Martha regretted to find that the major part of her antagonism was gone.

"I wish to thank you, Miss Chetwood, for your kindness to a very lonely man. It isn't probable that I shall see you again. I sail next Thursday for Singapore." He reached into a pocket. "I wonder if you would consider it an impertinence if I offered you this old trinket?"

He held out the mandarin's ring.

"What a beauty!" she exclaimed. "Of course I'll accept it. It is very kind of you. I am inordinately fond of such things. Thank you. How easily it slips over my finger!"

"Chinamen have very slender fingers," he explained. "Good-by. Those characters say 'Good luck and prosperity.'"

No expressed desire of wishing to meet her again; just an ordinary every-day farewell; and she liked him all the better for his apparent lack of sentiment.

"Good-by," she said. She winced, for his hand was rough-palmed and strong.

A little later she saw him pa.s.s down the street. He never turned and looked back.

"And why," asked Martha, "did you not tell the man that we sail on the same ship?"

"You're a simpleton, Martha." Elsa turned the ring round and round on her finger. "If I had told him, he would have canceled his sailing and taken another boat."

VII

CONFIDENCES

That night Martha wrote a letter. During the writing of it she jumped at every sound: a footstep in the hall, the shutting of a door, a voice calling in the street. And yet, Martha was guilty of performing only what she considered to be her bounden duty. It is the prerogative of fate to tangle or untangle the skein of human lives; but still, there are those who elect themselves to break the news gently, to lessen the shock of the blow which fate is about to deliver.

"_My dear Mr. Arthur_:

. . . I do not know what to make of it. His likeness to you is the most unheard of thing. He is a little bigger and broader and he wears his beard longer. That's all the difference. When he came on the boat that night, it was like a hand clutching at my throat. And you know how romantic Elsa is, for all that she believes she is prosaic. I am certain that she sees you in this stranger who calls himself Warrington. If only you had had the foresight to follow us, a sailing or two later! And now they'll be together for four or five days, down to Singapore. I don't like it. There's something uncanny in the thing. What if she did forbid you to follow? There are some promises women like men to break. You should have followed.

Neither of us has the slightest idea what the man has done to exile himself in this horrible land for ten years. He still behaves like a gentleman, and he must have been one in the past. But he has never yet spoken of his home, of his past, of his people. We don't even know that Warrington is his name. And you know that's a sign that something is wrong. I wonder if you have any relatives by the name of Warrington? I begin to see that man's face in my dreams.

I am worried. For Elsa is a puzzle. She has always been one to me. I have been with her since her babyhood; and yet I know as little of what goes on in her mind as a stranger would. Her father, you know, was a soldier, of fierce loves and hates; her mother was a handsome statue.

Elsa has her father's scorn for convention and his independence, clothed in her mother's impenetrable mask. Don't mistake me. Elsa is the most adorable creature to me, and I worship her; but I worry about her. I believe that it would be wise on your part to meet us in San Francisco. Give my love and respect to your dear beautiful mother.

And marry Elsa as fast as ever you can."

There followed some rambling comments on the weather, the rains and the dust, the execrable food and the lack of drinking-water. The man who eventually received this letter never reached that part of it.