Chapter 22

To Peter this revelation was like the addition of a single grain to a bucket brimming with sand.

"Well, what of it?" he barked.

"To a man who is fat and untidy, a man old enough to be my father, who treats me as if I were a thief, or a dog. I loathe him. And he detests me. You see"--she smiled ironically--"we are not very happy. I ran away from him a month ago, from Hong Kong. I ran as far as Singaraja, and now I have to go back because I have not the courage to stay away. A stronger will would make me give him up. Would make me go away, and stay. And I grabbed at you."

"As a drowning man would grab at a straw."

"Not at all! Perhaps, let us say, I had pictured such a man as you. And then you came. He will beat me when I return."

"No!"

"Yes!" She pressed down the gauzy stuff which came up almost to her throat in the form of a high "V." And across the rounded white curve of her chest were four angry red stripes, the marks of a whip.

He shuddered. "This is terrible."

"Will you help me--now?"

"What can I do? What can I do?" He was striving to adjust himself to this exceedingly difficult situation. "But I don't understand how you can place all this confidence in me."

"Because when I saw you I knew you were a man who stopped at nothing."

"But why--why does he beat you? It--it's incomprehensible!"

He stared at the beautiful face, the long, white appealing face, and the deep, dark eyes with their fringe of long lashes. If ever a girl was meant to be loved and protected it was this one.

"I know I am asking a great deal, far more than I have any right, and not taking you into consideration at all. But you will help me. You must. Have I talked to you in vain? Do--do you think I would make you unhappy?"

"That's not the question, not the question at all. But you don't know me. We are perfect strangers!"

That is what Peter had been trying to get out of his system all of this time. Had he been thinking connectedly at this trying moment, not for the life of him would he have uttered those words. He had convinced himself that he was above and beyond all shallow conventions. And in an unguarded moment this thought, which had been in and out of his mind, popped out like a ghost from a closet. We are perfect strangers!

"So is every man a stranger to his wife. What difference does time make? Very little, I think. A day--a week--a month--a year--twenty!--you and I would still be strangers, for that matter. Who can see into any man's heart?"

She stopped talking, and kneaded her hands as if in anguish.

"And think! Do think of me!"

"I am thinking of you," said Peter constrainedly.

"We can go to Nara, if you like, to the little inn near the deer-park, and be so happy--you and I. Think of Nara--in cherry-blossom time!"

"I can't see the picture at all," said Peter dryly. "But since you've elected me to be your--your Sir Galahad, I'll tell you what I will do."

Nervously the girl was fumbling at her throat, where, suspended by a fine gold chain, hung a cameo, a delicately carved rose, as red as her lips, and as life-like. She nodded, quite as though her life hung by that gold thread and depended at the high end upon his decision.

"Your husband's nationality?" he asked abruptly.

"He is a Portuguese gentleman, my father's cousin."

"It would be possible for me, perhaps, to aid a lady in distress by punishing the cause of it."

"You mean----"

"I will gladly undertake to thrash the gentleman, if it would do any good."

"No, no! That would not do."

"Then there's no choice for me. Either I must accept or decline your invitation."

"I pray you will! I have told you frankly and quickly, because time is valuable. We have none to lose. A steamer leaves for Formosa and Moji the morning after we arrive--at daybreak. We would scarcely have time to complete our plans, and embark."

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Complete our plans?" he intoned.

"Yes. We must raise money. You see, there is money, thousands of dollars, always in that house. It would be necessary to--to take whatever of it we needed. That is why I will need you, too."

"I think," declared Peter with decision, "that we had better call this a misdeal, and play another game for a while. In the first place, I will not run away with you, because it is against my principles to run away with a strange young woman. In the second place, stealing for pleasure is one of the seven deadly sins that I conscientiously avoid.

"Now that I have aired my views, now that I have proved to you I'm not as fine and brave as you hoped me to be, let's shake hands and part the best of friends--or the worst of enemies."

The girl rose from the chair into which she had dropped when Peter began his say. Alternately she was biting her upper and lower lips in nervousness or irritation. She put her back to the door and braced her hands against the white enameled panels. Her breast was heaving. She was desperately pale, and little dots of perspiration shone on her white forehead. And she was limp, as though his last remark had drained the final drop of vitality from her.

"I--I won't give you up," she said in a small, husky voice. "Besides, you are wrong, wrong in saying and believing that stealing his money would not be for a good cause. He is a brute, a monster, and worse than a thief. I cannot tell you how he gets his money. I would not dare to whisper it. You will be doing a fine and splendid thing in taking his money. You will be freeing me! Does that sound like heroics? I don't care if it does! But with that money you can buy my soul out of bondage. You can make me happy. Won't you? Won't you do--that--for me?"

Peter stood there like a block of ice--melting rapidly! But he said nothing. His thoughts were beyond the expression of clumsy words.

Her dumb hand found the key, turned it. The door opened, and a sweet breath of the cool sea air crept into the small room.

For a moment her white, distraught face hung down on her breast like that of a child who has been scolded without understanding why. Then she darted out of the room.