Parrot & Co. Part 6

"You are twenty-five, and yet you're only a child."

"What does that signify? That I am too young to manage my own affairs?

That I must set my clock as others order? Good soul!" putting her arms around the older woman. "Don't worry about Elsa Chetwood. Her life is her own, but she will never misuse it."

"Oh, if you were only married and settled down!"

"You mean, if I were happily married and settled down. There you have it. I'm in search of happiness. That's the Valley of Diamonds. When I find that, Martha, you may fold your hands in peace."

"Grant it may be soon! I hate the East!

"And I have just begun to love it."

V

BACK TO LIFE

The two days between Prome and Rangoon were distinctly memorable for the subtle changes wrought in the man and woman. Those graces of mind and manner which had once been the man's, began to find expression.

Physically, his voice became soft and mellow; his hands became full of emphasis; his body grew less and less clumsy, more and more leonine.

It has taken centuries and centuries to make the white man what he is to-day; yet, a single year of misfortune may throw him back into the primordial. For it is far easier to retrograde than to go forward, easier to let the world go by than to march along with it. Had he been less interested in Elsa and more concerned about his rehabilitation, self-a.n.a.lysis would have astonished Warrington. The blunt speech, the irritability in argument, the stupid pauses, the painful study of cunning phrases, the suspicion and reticence that figuratively encrust the hearts of shy and lonely men, these vanished under her warm if careless glances. For the first time in ten years a woman of the right sort was showing interest in him. True, there had been other women, but these had served only to make him retreat farther into his sh.e.l.l.

If the crust of barbarism is thick, that of civilization is thin enough. As Warrington went forward, Elsa stopped, and gradually went back, not far, but far enough to cause her to throw down the bars of reserve, to cease to guard her impulses against the invasion of interest and fascination. She faced the truth squarely, without palter. The man fascinated her. He was like a portrait with following eyes. She spoke familiarly of her affairs (always omitting Arthur); she talked of her travels, of the famous people she had met, of the wonderful pageants she had witnessed. And she secretly laughed at reproachful conscience that urged her to recall one of those laws Elsa herself had written down to follow: that which forbade a young unmarried woman to seek the companions.h.i.+p of a man about whom she knew nothing. It was not her fault that, with the exception of Martha who didn't count, they two were the only pa.s.sengers. This condition of affairs was directly chargeable to fate; and before the boat reached Rangoon, Elsa was quite willing to let fate s.h.i.+ft and set the scenes how it would. The first step toward reversion is the casting aside of one's responsibilities. Elsa s.h.i.+fted her cares to the shoulders of fate. So long as the man behaved himself, so long as he treated her with respect, real or feigned, nothing else mattered.

The phase that escaped her entirely was this, that had he not progressed, she would have retained her old poise, the old poise of which she was never again to be mistress. It is the old tale: sympathy to lift up another first steps down. And never had her sympathy gone out so quickly to any mortal. Elsa had a horror of loneliness, and this man seemed to be the living presentment of the word. What struggles, and how simply he recounted them! What things he had seen, what adventures had befallen him, what romance and mystery! She wondered if there had been a woman in his life and if she had been the cause of his downfall. Every day of the past ten years lay open for her to admire or condemn, but beyond these ten years there was a Chinese Wall, over which she might not look. Only once had she provoked the silent negative nod of his head. He was strong. Not the smallest corner of the veil was she permitted to turn aside. She walked hither and thither along the scarps and bastions of the barrier, but never found the breach.

"Will you come and dine with me to-night?" she asked, as they left the boat.

"No, Miss Innocence."

"That's silly. There isn't a soul I know here."

"But," gravely he replied, "there are many here who know me."

"Which infers that my invitation is unwise?"

"Absolutely unwise."

"Tea?"

"Frankly, I ought not to be seen with you."

"Why? Unless, indeed, you have not told me the truth."

"I have told you the truth."

"Then where's the harm?"

"For myself, none. On the boat it did not matter so much. It was a situation which neither of us could foresee nor prevent. I have told you that people here look askance at me because they know nothing about me, save that I came from the States. And they are wise. I should be a cad if I accepted your invitation to dinner."

"Then, I am not to see you again?"

The smile would have lured him across three continents. "To-morrow, I promise to call and have tea with you, much against my better judgment."

"Oh, if you don't want to come . . ."

"Don't want to come!"

Something in his eyes caused Elsa to speak hurriedly. "Good-by until to-morrow."

She gave him her hand for a moment, stepped into the carriage, which already held Martha and the luggage, and then drove off to the Strand Hotel.

He stood with his helmet in his hand. A fine warm rain was falling, but he was not conscious of it. It seemed incredible that time should produce such a change within the s.p.a.ce of seventy hours, a little more, a little less. As she turned and waved a friendly hand, he knew that the desolation which had been his for ten years was nothing as compared to that which now fell upon his heart. She was as unattainable as the north star; and nothing, time nor circ.u.mstance, could bridge that incalculable distance. She was the most exquisite contradiction; in one moment the guilelessness of a child, in another, the worldly-wise woman. Had she been all of the one or all of the other, he would not have been touched so deeply. If she loved a man, there would be no silly doddering; the voice of the petty laws that strove to hedge her in would be in her ears as a summer breeze. For one so young--and twenty-five was young--she possessed a disconcerting directness in her logic. So far he observed that she retained but one illusion, that somewhere in the world there was a man worth loving. His heart hurt him. He must see her no more after the morrow. Enchantment and happiness were two words which fate had ruthlessly scratched from his book of days.

Mr. Hooghly had already started off toward the town, the kit-bag and the valise slung across his shoulders, the parrot-cage bobbing at his side. He knew where to go; an obscure lodging for men in the heart of the business section, known in jest by the derelicts as The Stranded.

Warrington, becoming suddenly aware that his pose, if prolonged, would become ridiculous, put on his helmet and proceeded to the Bank of Burma. To-day was Wednesday; Thursday week he would sail for Singapore and close the chapter. Before banking hours were over, his financial affairs were put in order, and he walked forth with two letters of credit and enough bank-notes and gold to carry him around the world, if so he planned. Next, he visited a p.a.w.n-shop and laid down a dozen mutilated tickets, receiving in return a handsome watch, emerald cuff-b.u.t.tons, some stick-pins, some pearls, and a beautiful old ruby ring, a gift of the young Maharajah of Udaipur. The ancient Chinaman smiled. This was a rare occasion. Men generally went out of his dark and dingy shop and never more returned.

"Much money. Can do now?" affably.

"Can do," replied Warrington, slipping the treasures into a pocket.

What a struggle it had been to hold them! Somehow or other he had always been able to meet the interest; though, often to accomplish this feat he had been forced to go without tobacco for weeks.

There is a vein of superst.i.tion in all of us, deny it how we will.

Certain inconsequent things we do or avoid doing. We never walk home on the opposite side of the street. We carry luck-stones and battered pieces of copper that have ceased to serve as coins. We fill the garret with useless junk. Warrington was as certain of the fact as he was of the rising and the setting of the sun, that if he lost these heirlooms, he never could go back to the old familiar world, the world in which he had moved and lived and known happiness. Never again would he part with them. A hundred thousand dollars, almost; with his simple wants he was now a rich man.

"Buy ling?" asked the Chinaman. He rolled a mandarin's ring carelessly across the show-case. "Gold; all heavy; velly old, velly good ling."

"What does it say?" asked Warrington, pointing to the characters.

"Good luck and plospeity; velly good signs."

It was an unusually beautiful ring, unusual in that it had no setting of jade. Warrington offered three sovereigns for it. The Chinaman smiled and put the ring away. Warrington laughed and laid down five pieces of gold. The Chinaman swept them up in his lean dry hands. And Warrington departed, wondering if she would accept such a token.

By four o'clock he arrived at the Chinese tailors in the Suley PaG.o.da Road. He ordered a suit of pongee, to be done at noon the following day. He added to this orders for four other suits, to be finished within a week. Then he went to the shoemaker, to the hatter, to the haberdasher. There was even a light Malacca walking-stick among his purchases. A long time had pa.s.sed since he had carried a cane. There used to be, once upon a time, a dapper light bamboo which was known up and down Broadway, in the restaurants, the more or less famous bars, and in the lounging-rooms of a popular club. All this business because he wanted her to realize what he had been and yet could be. Thus, vanity sometimes works out a man's salvation. And it marked the end of Warrington's recidivation.

When he reached his lodging-house he sought the Burmese landlady. She greeted him with a smile and a stiff little shake of the hand. He owed her money, but that was nothing. Had he not sent her drunken European sailor-man husband about his business? Had he not freed her from a tyranny of fists and curses? It had not affected her in the least to learn that her sailor-man had been negligently married all the way from Yokohama to Colombo. She was free of him.

Warrington spread out a five-pound note and laid ten sovereigns upon it. "There we are," he said genially; "all paid up to date."

"This?" touching the note.

"A gift for all your patience and kindness."

"You go 'way?" the smile leaving her pretty moon-face.

"Yes."