The Ragged Edge Part 5

The noise of crashing gla.s.s caused a diversion; and Ruth turned gratefully toward the sound.

The young man had knocked over the siphon. He rose, steadied himself, then walked out of the dining room. Except for the dull eyes and the extreme pallor of his face, there was nothing else to indicate that he was deep in liquor. He did not stagger in the least. And in this fact lay his danger. The man who staggers, whose face is flushed, whose att.i.tude is either noisily friendly or truculent, has some chance; liquor bends him eventually. But men of the Spurlock type, who walk straight, who are un.o.btrusive and intensely pale, they break swiftly and inexplicably. They seldom arrive on the beach. There are way-stations--even terminals.

There was still the pity of understanding in Ruth's eyes. Perhaps it was loneliness. Perhaps he had lost his loved ones and was wandering over the world seeking forgetfulness. But he would die if he continued in this course. They were alike in one phase--loveless and lonely. If he died, here in this hotel, who would care? Or if she died, who would care?

A queer desire blossomed in her heart: to go to him, urge him to see the folly of trying to forget. Of what use was the temporary set-back to memory, when it always returned with redoubled poignancy?

Then came another thought, astonishing. This was the first young man who had drawn from her something more than speculative interest. True, on board the ships she had watched young men from afar, but only with that normal curiosity which is aroused in the presence of any new species. But after Singapore she found herself enduing them with the characteristics of the heroes in the novels she had just read for the first time. This one was Henry Esmond, that one the melancholy Marius, and so forth and so on; never any villains. It wasn't worth while to invest imaginatively a man with evil projects simply because he was physically ugly.

Some day she wanted to be loved as Marius loved Cosette; but there was another character which bit far more deeply into her mind. Why?

Because she knew him in life, because, so long as she could remember, he had crossed and recrossed her vision--Sidney Carton.

The wastrel, the ne'er-do-well, who went mostly n.o.bly to a fine end.

Here, then, but for the time and place, might be another Sidney Carton. Given the proper incentive, who could say that he might not likewise go n.o.bly to some fine end? She thrilled. To find the incentive! But how? Thither and yon the idea roved, seeking the way. But always this new phase in life which civilization called convention threw up barrier after barrier.

She could not go to him with a preachment against strong drink; she knew from experience that such a plan would be wasted effort. Had she not seen them go forth with tracts in their pockets and grins in their beards? To set fire to his imagination, to sting his sense of chivalry into being, to awaken his manhood, she must present some irresistible project. She recalled that day of the typhoon and the sloop crashing on the outer reefs. The heroism of two beach combers had saved all on board and their own manhood as well.

"Are you returning to Hong-Kong to-morrow by the day boat?"

For a moment Ruth was astonished at the sound of the spinster's voice. She had, by the magic of recollection, set the picture of the typhoon between herself and her table companions: the terrible rollers thundering on the white sh.o.r.e, the deafening bellow of the wind, the bending and snapping palms, the thatches of the native huts scattering inland, the blur of sand dust, and those two outcasts defying the elements.

"I don't know," she answered vaguely.

"But there's nothing more to see in Canton."

"Perhaps I'm too tired to plan for to-morrow. Those awful chairs!"

After dinner the spinsters proceeded to inscribe their accustomed quota of postcards, and Ruth was left to herself. She walked through the office to the door, aimlessly.

Beyond the steps was a pole-chair in readiness. One of the coolies held the paper lantern. Near by stood Ah c.u.m and the young unknown, the former protesting gently, the latter insistent upon his demands.

"I repeat," said Ah c.u.m, "that the venture is not propitious.

Canton is all China at night. If we were set upon I could not defend you. But I can easily bring in a sing-song girl to play for you."

"No. I want to make my own selection."

"Very well, sir. But if you have considerable money, you had better leave it in the office safe. You can pay me when we return. The sing-song girls in Hong-Kong are far handsomer. That is a part of the show in Hong-Kong. But here it is China."

"If you will not take me, I'll find some guide who will."

"I will take you. I simply warn you."

Spurlock entered the office, pa.s.sed Ruth without observing her (or if he did observe her, failed to recognize her), and deposited his funds with the manager.

"I advise you against this trip, Mr. Taber," said the manager.

"Affairs are not normal in Canton at present. Only a few weeks ago there was a b.l.o.o.d.y battle on the bridge there between the soldiery and the local police. Look at these walls."

The walls were covered with racks of loaded rifles. In those revolutionary times one had to be prepared. Some Chinaman might take it into his head to shout: "Death to the foreign devils!" And out of that wall yonder would boil battle and murder and sudden death. A white man, wandering about the streets of Canton at night, was a challenge to such a catastrophe.

Taber. Ruth stared thoughtfully at the waiting coolies. That did not sound like the name the young man had offered in the tower of the water-clock. She remained by the door until the walls of the city swallowed the bobbing lantern. Then she went into the office.

"What is a sing-song girl?" she asked.

The manager twisted his moustache. "The same as a j.a.panese geisha girl."

"And what is a geisha girl?"

Not to have heard of the geisha! It was as if she had asked: "What is Paris?" What manner of tourist was this who had heard neither of the geisha of j.a.pan nor of the sing-song girl of China? Before he could marshal the necessary phrases to explain, Ruth herself indicated her thought.

"A bad girl?" She put the question as she would have put any question--level-eyed and level-toned.

After a series of mental gymnastics--occupying the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds--it came to him with a shock that here was a new specimen of the species. At the same time he comprehended that she was as pure and lovely as the white orchid of Borneo and that she did not carry that ridiculous shield called false modesty. He could talk to her as frankly as he could to a man, that she would not take offence at anything so long as it was in the form of explanation.

On the other hand, there was a subconscious impression that she would be able to read instantly anything unclean in a man's eye.

All her questions would have as a background the idea of future defence.

"The geisha and the sing-song girl are professional entertainers.

They are not bad girls, but the average tourist has that misconception of them. If some of them are bad in the sense you mean, it is because there are bad folks in all walks of life. They sell only their talents, not their bodies; they are not girls of the street."

The phrase was new, but Ruth nodded understandingly.

"Still," went on the manager, "they are slaves in a sense; they are bought and sold until their original indebtedness is paid. A father is in debt, we'll say. He sells his daughter to a geisha or a sing-song master, and the girl is rented out until the debt is paid.

Then the work is optional; they go on their own. There are sing-song girls in Hong-Kong and Shanghai who are famous and wealthy.

Sometimes they marry well. If they become bad it is through inclination, not necessity."

Again Ruth nodded.

"To go a little further. Morality is a point of view. It is an Occidental point of view. The Oriental has no equivalent. What you would look upon as immorality is here merely an established custom, three thousand years older than Christianity, accepted with no more ado than that which would accompany you should you become a clerk in a shop."

"That is what I wanted to know," said Ruth gravely. "The poor things!"

The manager laughed. "Your sympathy is being wasted. They are the only happy women in the Orient."

"Do you suppose he knew?"

"He? Oh, you mean Mr. Taber?" He wondered if this crystal being was interested in that blundering fool who had gone recklessly into the city. "I don't know what his idea was."

"Will there be any danger?"

"To Mr. Taber? There is a possibility. Canton at night is as much China as the border town of Lan-Chow-fu. A white man takes his life in his hands. But Ah c.u.m is widely known for his luck. Besides," he added cynically, "it is said that G.o.d watches over fools and drunken men."

This expression was old in Ruth's ears. She had heard the trader utter it many times.

"Thank you," she said, and left the office.

The manager stared at the empty doorway for a s.p.a.ce, shrugged, and returned to his ledgers. The uncanny directness of those gray eyes, the absence of diffidence, the beauty of the face in profile (full, it seemed a little too broad to make for perfect beauty), the mellow voice that came full and free, without hesitance, all combined to mark her as the most unusual young woman he had ever met. He was certain that those lips of hers had never known the natural and pardonable simper of youth.

Was she interested in that young a.s.s who was risking his bones over there in the city? They had come up on the same boat. Still, one never could tell. The young fellow was almost as odd in his way as the girl was in hers. He seldom spoke, and drank with a persistence that was sinister. He was never drunk in the accepted meaning of the word; rather he walked in a kind of stupefaction. Supposing Ah c.u.m's luck failed for once?

The manager made a gesture of dismissal, and added up the bill for the Misses Jedson, who were returning to Hong-Kong in the morning.