Caravans By Night Part 27

"Well--yourself."

Another smile; he lighted his pipe. "Go on."

"Really, would you be satisfied in a prosaic English or American city--after--all this?"--with a vague gesture.

He didn't know; hadn't thought about it. Perhaps--perhaps not.

"I don't believe you would," was her opinion. "You've absorbed a certain amount of atmosphere that has poisoned you in so far as living elsewhere is concerned. I shouldn't be at all surprised, either, to learn that you think Indian and Chinese religions superior to ours?"

"Aren't they?"

"Are they?"

"You, yourself, spoke a few days ago, if I remember correctly, of the philosophies and doctrines of the East--doctrines that have nothing to do with mints or stock-exchanges, as you expressed it."

"Yes. But now I'm comparing the principles of religion--those adopted by our thinkers and real philosophers. Oh, we have our n.o.bler types, who haven't been blinded by earth-dust! It may be a taint of the flesh in me, but I can't adjust myself to the belief that the ascetics and shrivelled yogis that I've seen are the proper habitations for pure spirituality. If the manifestation isn't wholesome, how can the inner conception be? You wouldn't fill an unclean vessel with holy water, would you? It's the methods and instruments through which the East voices its philosophies that I rebel against. That which mutilates, or even neglects, the body, can't be a true religion.... But really, I'm afraid I'm getting beyond my depth. What I originally intended to say is this: occultism is dangerous to those of the West, minds and bodies of a different substance than those of the Orient. I knew a man who became interested in theosophy. After a time he entered some secret cult that had a temple in the Himalayas. It grew to be an obsession, and now ...

well, he tried to touch flames that were not conceived for man-tampering and they seared him."

Trent chuckled. "In other words," he said, "you're afraid I'm a Buddhist or a Mohammedan at heart, or, if by good fortune I'm not, you wish to warn me against exotic religions." Another chuckle. "It's flattering.

What other conclusions have you drawn?"

"Just at present," she responded, smiling maliciously, "I think you're horrid."

He sobered. "Please go on. It's like looking into your house from the neighbor's window. I'm really interested."

"Or curious? Men who have not ventured into matrimony are, as a rule, inquisitive. And that suggests another question. It seems to me that one alone would be much more receptive to these"--she smiled--"these paganisms than one in union with another. Loneliness--that is, isolation--is food for heresies."

That showed him an old vista at a new angle. There was no misinterpreting her meaning.... Women. A few, but none of consequence; puerile pa.s.sions and brief affairs of the starlight, never the full ruddy glow of a riper devotion, the finding of the One Woman.... And again, that might not have been her meaning at all. She--At a sudden inspiration he spoke--before he considered.

"Why, no, I'm not married, if that's what you mean."

She gave him a queer look--half smiling, half vexed. There was a faint suffusion of color in her cheeks.

"I'm not quite sure," she announced, swinging her feet to the deck, "but I've almost decided that you're impossible. However, I'll leave you alone to decide for yourself."

And she did.

7

At dinner Trent sensed a change in Dana Charteris. She was quite friendly, even inquired banteringly if he were angry because of the manner in which she left him that morning, but there was, invisible, indefinable, a reserve in her att.i.tude that forbade a resumption of the former intimacy. This troubled him.

Later, on deck, he was brought out of his reflections by the sound of uneven footsteps. Hsien Sgam approached. He was dressed in white and seemed to Trent almost grotesque--the twisted limb and the beautiful, yet strangely sinister, face!

In the course of conversation he asked Trent's business. The answer brought forth a short discourse upon precious stones. He then touched the war--inquired if Trent had "seen service," as he termed it in a thoroughly Occidental way. Realizing that he was being catechized, Trent replied guardedly. In the East, quizzed the Mongol? No, on the Western front, Trent lied. In the infantry, Hsien Sgam a.s.sumed? Yes, the infantry....

Of course Trent had traveled a great deal, he presumed. Well, a bit, the Englishman admitted. If it were not too impertinent (thus the Mongol) he imagined Mr. Tavernake had not always been "of the trade." He had the appearance of--well, a soldier rather than a "business man"; one eager for ranges and color and action, so to speak.

It was then that Trent became more communicative. He was rather a soldier of fortune, he acknowledged; intrigue lured him. But the Mongol was as wary as he, for, perceiving the change in tactics, he turned the talk into another channel.

A few minutes later he moved on. Trent watched him limp off and puzzled over this anomaly of a man. What was his object in catechizing him? He could not even surmise; but he determined to take a drastic step toward finding out.

His first move led him to the purser's office. Closing the door quietly behind him, he said:

"I would like to borrow your pa.s.s-key a moment."

"Sorry, sir," came the polite reply, "but it's against orders. I can unlock your door--if you've lost the key--but--"

"Suppose you call the captain," Trent suggested.

"Tell him Mr. Tavernake wants to borrow the key. I'll be responsible for it."

While the purser was telephoning, Trent scanned the register. "Hsien Sgam--No. 227," he read.

"It's all right, sir," reported the purser, hanging up the receiver, a new note of respect in his voice.

Trent circled the deck, a.s.sured himself that Hsien Sgam was in the smoking-room, then went aft to cabin No. 227. A turn of the key, a glance behind into the vestibule-way, and he was inside. He locked the door; drew the curtain across the window.

A thorough search gained him little knowledge. Only clothing and a hand-grip containing perfunctory toilet articles; there were no letters, not even a pa.s.sport. Evidently the Mongol carried all papers of importance upon his person.

Hardly a.s.sured, yet satisfied to a degree, Trent returned the key to the purser and made his way toward his cabin--and as he rounded a corner of the deckhouse he almost collided with Dana Charteris. She backed, half in surprise, half in fright, to the rail, and gripped the white enameled iron.

"Oh!" she flared. "You _do_ appear at the most inopportune times!"

And she stalked past him, entering the cabin before he could recover himself enough to speak.

Perplexed, he continued to his state-room. "Inopportune, indeed," he muttered as he closed the door--for as she darted to the rail he saw her fling something overboard, an object that flashed white as it shot past the scuppers.

He sat down on the edge of the berth; filled his pipe.

What was she carrying that she did not want him to see? It could not have been of value or she would not have disposed of it in that manner.

But....

He ran his fingers through his hair; puffed on his pipe.

Was it possible--? No, the very suspicion was preposterous; he was surprised that it should even occur to him. Yet, he acknowledged, a certain king of Ithaca believed in the beauty of Calypso. Forcing himself to face the situation, he reviewed his short acquaintance with Dana Charteris in a cold, scrutinizing light. The result was not altogether pleasing. Their midnight encounter on the portico at Benares was hardly rea.s.suring, now that he looked at it through a different lens, nor was the meeting in the Chinese quarter, in Calcutta....

_Intermezzo!_ Would it end in discord? He smiled grimly, confessing to himself that grave doubts (and, deeper than doubts, an ache that was not physical) had arisen from this new development. Had he been a fool?

He fortified his mind against such thoughts. What substantial reason had he to suspect that her interest in him was other than personal?

(Personal! That word was fine ego.) The incident on deck--Well, he evaded, it might have been anything that she threw overboard, a handkerchief ... or.... At least, he would not be so unjust as to suspicion her--or anyone, he enlarged--upon such meager suppositions.

Only partially satisfied, he retired. He did not go to sleep for some time--and when he awakened in the morning, with the sun raining bronze needles at the blue sea, his first recollection was of the incident on the previous night. Considered in daylight, it lost its dark significance, but, nevertheless, made him vaguely uneasy.

This brooding discontent grew with the day. Dana Charteris was not in the dining-salon at breakfast, nor did she come on deck during the morning. He sat near her chair, waiting, his mind barred against either condemnation or justification. He would reserve his decision until he heard what she had to say. When she appeared (and it seemed that she never would) she could probably clear the incident with a few words, an explanation that would no doubt shed a light of absurdity upon his apprehensions.

But she did not appear, not even at tiffin, and he pa.s.sed a restless afternoon. He walked the vessel from bow to stern, from bridge to the torrid depths where beings heaved fuel into her hungry stomach, impatient with the unseen forces that controlled his affairs.

He saw Hsien Sgam several times, but avoided him, for his mood was not a friendly one. A short interview with Guru Singh--who clung to the integrity of his honor--only served to irritate him, and a few minutes later when he came upon Tambusami, in the steerage, confabbing with the snake-charmer (he of the scar and the drooping eyelid) he snapped him up in his laconic way for having removed the dressing from his cut.