Part 9

Her father's eyes rested on her proudly, but fondly. Her mother too was proud of her rare young beauty, as it seemed to irradiate the room and drive away the shadows. But her pride in her daughter was different from the father's. Mr. MacAllister thought of her only as their daughter--beautiful, winsome, teasing sometimes, but so true in her love and dutifulness that she had never really caused an anxious thought. He loved her for her own sake, and hers alone. He felt a twinge of pain every time the thought entered his mind that the day would come when she would be separated from them. Mrs. MacAllister thought of her as possessed not only of grace and beauty, but of that culture and social training which she herself so sadly lacked. She thought of her as qualified to be a queen in the world of society; dreamed of the day when she should bear a great, old family name, perhaps that of a noble house, and should shed a reflected glory on the MacAllisters, who had acquired wealth and luxury, but could not contrive a history. Hers was a love of ambition.

Was the attitude of the daughter towards her father and mother an instinctive though perhaps unconscious response to the differing attitudes of her parents to her?

"Good-morning, father! Good-morning, mother!"

The conventional phrases were identical in form. But there was a world of difference in the accent. She kissed her mother somewhat perfunctorily. But she threw her arms around her father's neck, kissed him tenderly, and laid her proud head with its wealth of hair for a moment on his shoulder. Then she lifted it and asked very demurely:

"Is not Mr. De Vaux to breakfast with us this morning?"

"He promised to do so. But it is already nearly half an hour past the time we appointed."

"Perhaps he is still being 'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.'"

"Whist, Jessie, lass! You mustn't make fun of people's weakness."

"Father, why do men, when they find themselves getting drunk, take another glass of whiskey and soda, 'just to straighten up'? It seems to me that every glass of it they take makes them sillier and more stupid than they were before."

"Why do you ask me, Jessie? You know that I am almost a teetotaller. You should answer that question yourself. You were championing the cause of drinking last evening against Dr. Sinclair."

"Now, father, that's not fair." A slight flush appeared on her neck and flowed upwards, deepening the rich colour of her face. "You know that I didn't mean that, especially when there were men around me drinking themselves into imbecility."

"Then, why did you say it?"

Her father's eyes, kindly but keen, were searching her face. She felt a fresh wave of hot blood mounting upwards:

"Oh, I don't know! You ought to have learned by this time that a woman cannot always give reasons even to herself why she does things."

"Well, whatever you did it for, you succeeded in making Dr. Sinclair very uncomfortable for a while."

"He deserves to be made uncomfortable," she flashed back. "He makes other people feel very uncomfortable sometimes."

She glanced at her mother. Mrs. MacAllister's lips were tightly closed. Her nose was elevated a bit. She was about to sniff at something. She had not time. A high-pitched voice was heard outside:

"Get out of my way, boy. Bless my soul! Chop-chop! You are most exasperating."

A heavy footstep sounded on the stairway leading to the second story, where the living-rooms were. There were short gasps of laboured breathing, and De Vaux burst into the room, peering blindly in the semi-darkness after the brilliant sunshine without.

"Good-morning, Mr. De Vaux. You are just in time to join us at breakfast. We thought something had occurred to detain you. But we have just this moment sat down. Pardon us for not waiting on you. We are delighted that you are able to be with us."

Mrs. MacAllister was kind, almost effusive, in her welcome. But De Vaux could find no words to excuse his delinquency:

"Mrs. MacAllister! ... I have disgraced myself.... 'Pon my soul! ... Mr. MacAllister! ... This never happened to me before.... 'Pon my honour, as a gentleman! ... I'm ashamed of myself.... Miss MacAllister! ... To think that I was to have the honour of having breakfast with you--and--I was late! ... Bless my soul! ... I do not know what to think of myself."

The head of the firm was gravely considerate and courteous towards the firm's agent, whose weakness he had noted the evening before.

"Accidents will happen sometimes, Mr. De Vaux. Allow me to assure you that you have caused us no inconvenience this morning. Will you not be seated and have breakfast with us?"

With some difficulty the stream of De Vaux's apologies and the succession of his bows were interrupted, and he was induced to be seated. But his face was purple and his eyes were bulging and bloodshot. Miss MacAllister could not resist the temptation.

"Mr. De Vaux," she said, "I am afraid that you have hurried too much in the heat. The blood has rushed to your head. I am really concerned lest you should have an attack of apoplexy. I have always been so afraid of apoplexy since our old butler died of an attack after celebrating patriotically but unwisely the bombardment of Alexandria. Will you not allow me to order a cold soda for you? Boy, one piecee soda, ice cold!"

"All lite! All lite! One piecee ise col' soda!"

What more she might have said remains unknown, for a warning look and a shake of the head from her farther prevented her pursuing her victim any farther. As it was, De Vaux was in a state of gurgling, stuttering impotence:

"Bless my soul! ... Miss MacAllister! ... Who else would have thought of it? ... Lord! ... Miss MacAllister! ... You have the kindness of an angel.... 'Pon my soul, you have! ... I assure you that I am quite well.... Nothing the matter with me.... Except that I sat up a little late with Carteret.... Talked over the delightful evening we had.... Nothing else, I assure you.... 'Pon my honour!"

"And how is Mr. Carteret this morning?" inquired Mrs. MacAllister solicitously. "I hope that he is very well."

"My dear Mrs. MacAllister, make your mind easy about that. He is sleeping quite naturally and soundly.... 'Pon my word of honour, he is! ... The commissioner tried to waken him to go to the office.... But he couldn't.... Not even with a bucket of water.... 'Pon my soul, that's the truth! I never saw a man sleep so soundly.... But he will be all right by this afternoon. He will waken up for tennis.... He's our best tennis player.... Bless my soul! There's no danger of his missing the tennis."

Miss MacAllister had tried to control herself through this expose. But by the time De Vaux had finished the merry peal of laughter rang out without restraint. Her mother looked annoyed and mortified. Her father, scarcely able to conceal a smile, was diplomatically trying to lead De Vaux to some other subject.

"Did you chance to hear any more news of how the day went at Keelung, Mr. De Vaux?" he asked. "Have any reports come in from the Chinese side?"

"Bless my soul! ... How did I forget to tell you? ... I met Captain Whiteley as I came down.... Mrs. MacAllister, that is one of the reasons why I was late.... 'Pon my word! I was so upset and ashamed of myself that I could not present my apologies.... I beg your pardon, Mr. MacAllister.... Captain Whiteley told me that Dr. Sinclair was off to the front this morning before daybreak.... By----! ... 'Pon my soul, I mean, I was never so surprised in my life."

"Dr. Sinclair! Off to the front!" Mr. and Mrs. MacAllister spoke together.

"Yes," replied De Vaux. "He has gone to serve as a doctor with the Chinese army.... Never heard of a man taking such risk.... It's sheer suicide.... By----! ... 'Pon my soul, it is!"

Mrs. MacAllister glanced at her daughter, and her husband's eyes followed. Miss MacAllister was sitting up very erect and looking straight at De Vaux. Her lips were parted. Her face had paled a little. But her eyes were dark and glowing.

"Did any one go with him?" she asked abruptly.

"I believe that Sergeant Gorman, the constable at the consulate----"

"I mean did any of the gentlemen go? Any of the gentlemen we met at the consulate last evening?"

"Why! Bless my soul! No! ... Not that I know of!" stuttered De Vaux.

"I wish that I were a man," she flashed back. "I would not see one man go out to a dangerous duty alone."

"But--but, my dear Miss MacAllister," blurted out De Vaux. "We did not know that he was going.... 'Pon my honour as a gentleman, we did not! ... He left before we were awake."

"That's one advantage of being a teetotaller," was the quick reply.

Mrs. MacAllister elevated her nose and gave her characteristic sniff:

"I think that Dr. Sinclair is simply foolhardy. It is perfectly absurd for a man to risk his life for the sake of those dirty Chinese. I do not know how any one can bear to live among them, let alone having to touch them." (De Vaux got very red.) "And as for going into a whole army of them to heal their wounds, it's simply Quixotic" (she pronounced it Kwy-so-tic), "that's all it is; Quixotic."

De Vaux winced at the pronunciation--perhaps also at the sentiment. He began to gurgle unintelligibly. As usual, Mr. MacAllister came to the rescue.

"It was with the hope of getting an opportunity to do medical work among these people that Dr. Sinclair came to this country. I should think that the present situation offers him an admirable opening. A physician or surgeon who is really in love with his work does not stop to consider whether his patients are attractive or not. His one thought is to heal them."

"It is all very good to talk about sacrificing oneself to do good," replied his wife tartly. "And when I am at home I just love to hear missionary sermons, and sometimes to attend women's missionary meetings. But to come out here and live among those natives and think you can make them any better and get them to know anything about the religion which educated, intelligent white people believe in, is sheer foolishness. I am very much disappointed in Dr. Sinclair. It is nothing but foolishness."

"I think that it is just splendid to do something like that," said her daughter. "Just think of it, to be over there where hundreds of men are being brought in wounded and to be the only one who can do anything for them! And to have those poor creatures wonder at the cures! Why wasn't I a man?"

"Yes, and have one of the dear, grateful creatures stick a knife into you when your back is turned," said her mother sarcastically.

But her daughter paid no attention to the interruption:

"Mr. De Vaux, do you know the country over there, around Keelung, where the fighting is going on? Of course you do. Won't you tell us all about it?"

So through the remainder of the breakfast she plied De Vaux with questions, and brought out the fact that he had really a remarkable store of knowledge about the island and its inhabitants. And all the while the father looked on, and occasionally thought of her conduct the evening before, and wondered. But her mother looked unutterable things, ever and anon interjected an acid remark, which served as pickles to the bill of fare, and frequently sniffed.

*XV*

*THE LURE OF THE EAST*

Mountain and river, land and sea slept that afternoon in the wealth of sunshine which flooded the earth. A scarcely perceptible sea-breeze ever and anon caused the lighter foliage to tremble. The great fronds of the palm trees hung absolutely motionless, the air quivered in the heat. Millions of cicadas shrilled in the trees and shrubbery. In some way or another their ceaseless quavering, shrilling notes seemed to fit in with the quivering wavelets of atmosphere, until one came to look upon them as cause and effect and inseparably associated. That tremulous atmosphere would not be complete without those quavering notes. The notes would not be complete without the atmosphere.

The native birds were all silent. Only the English sparrows seemed utterly indifferent to the heat. They fluttered and chirped and fought just as cheerfully as they would have done in the soft climate of their native England or amid the Arctic frosts of a Western Canadian January.

Human life was almost as quiescent as that of the birds. Down by the water-front of the town a number of junks were hastily loading in order to put to sea with the late afternoon tide. Around the _Hailoong_ a little fleet of cargo boats clustered, busily discharging their lading into her hold. McLeod had evidently been successful in his trip up-river. On the downs back of the consulate and the mission buildings Chinese soldiers were mounting cannon of many ages and designs on their earthworks.

These were the only signs of activity. The soldiers and cannon were the only indications of war. A great quiet rested over the beautiful landscape, a peace as cloudless as that summer sky.

Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Eight bells! Four o'clock! The brazen notes rang out from the _Hailoong_. Like an echo they were answered, only in silver tones as soft and sweet as those of a cathedral chime. Involuntarily one looked around for the church-spire and waited to hear the hymn tune come floating on the air. But there was no church, and there was no holy hymn. It was the bell of the trim little gunboat, _Locust_, resting out there on the bosom of the river striking the hour of four.

A group of white-clad figures appeared on the bright green of the consulate lawn. Other figures clad in white, men and women, were moving in ones and twos along the narrow road on the top of the hill or through the shrubbery of the consul's garden to join them. It might be a tropic land and a day of tropic sunshine. The natives of that land, all save those who were compelled to work, might be seeking shelter from the sun and waiting for the cool of the evening before again exposing themselves to its rays. But, like the sparrows from his home land, the Englishman could not rest. The sun had no terrors for him. If he had no work to do, he would have sport. The whole English-speaking population who could get away from their duties, whether residents or transients, were assembling for the afternoon game of tennis.

Yet they were not foolhardy in their exposure to the sun. They took precautions. Indeed, the striking thing about their sport was the trouble they had taken to make it comfortable and enjoyable.

The lawn, if it could not boast the carpet of green velvet which characterizes an English lawn, was well covered with close-set grass. In spite of the efforts of the great slugs to burrow it into holes and throw up pyramids of earth, daily rolling had kept it firm and smooth. A green wall of hedge, reenforced by wire netting, surrounded it. The big bulk of the old Dutch fort sheltered half of it from the rays of the declining sun. An oblong of sail-cloth, stretched between two tall masts, shaded the other half. The players had rarely ever occasion to be exposed to the sun. Chinese coolies, in the dark blue and red uniforms of the consul's service, two behind the players and two at the net, picked up the balls and handed them to the players. Long, comfortable settees and chairs, and a table laden with cool drinks, nestled against the hedge in the shadiest corner.

"Really, Mr. Beauchamp, this is the luxury of tennis. A canopy to shelter us! Coolies in livery to pick up the balls! I'm surprised that you do not have proxies to run for us, as they do in cricket when the veterans play. You really ought to have native boys to do the running."

"We're working on it, Miss MacAllister; we're working on it. Soon we'll be able to give it to the world. Brand new game! Tropical tennis! Latest thing in sport! Four players to a side! Two in the inner courts and two in the outer! Only two rackets to a side! Native boys in liveries of smiles and sunshine to carry rackets from back to forward players and vice versa, as occasion to meet the ball requires. Great discovery! Carteret and I are working on it."

"Magnificent, Mr. Beauchamp! Magnificent!" exclaimed Miss MacAllister amidst a burst of laughter. "You and Mr. Carteret will be catalogued with Columbus and Sir Isaac Newton among the great benefactors of the race. When will you be able to bestow it upon mankind? I do hope that it may be while I am here."

"It would have been before this, were it not that Carteret and I differ on a small point, a mere detail."

"And what is that?"

"I think it sufficient to provide the players with easy-chairs in which to rest between strokes. But Carteret wants them to be permanently suspended in hammocks, and that the balls must be so served as to enable the players to return them without arising from a reclining position."

There was a peal of laughter at the consul's little absurdity. Carteret joined in with the rest. But his pallid face flushed at the palpable thrust at his well-known indolence.

Commander Gardenier was unable to come. But his second in command, Lieutenant Lanyon, a young Irishman, was delighted to escape the routine of duty on board ship for a day ashore and the company of some attractive ladies. With the headlong courage of his race, whether in love or in war, he immediately asked Miss MacAllister to be his partner in the first set, without waiting to see if that were agreeable to his host, who was arranging the players. His frank, boyish, open-eyed admiration of his choice was so good to see that the consul, usually a bit of an autocrat in all such matters, laughingly accepted the situation.

"Carteret, will you take my wife as partner and defend the honour of the island? These two reckless young visitors have evidently taken it upon themselves to challenge the residents."

"Certainly, Mr. Beauchamp. I shall be delighted to have so skilful a partner as Mrs. Beauchamp. We shall endeavour to give a good account of ourselves. From their manner I should judge that our opponents are perfectly confident of winning."

He looked to where the young naval officer and Miss MacAllister were standing. They were already deep in conversation and apparently entirely oblivious to the rest of the company. He heard Lanyon say:

"By Jove! luck has come my way to-day. Little did I think when we were ordered to Tamsui that there would be such fortune before me as to meet any one like you. It does my heart good just to look at you."

Miss MacAllister laughed merrily.

"Do you always express yourself so frankly on so short acquaintance, Mr. Lanyon?" she asked. "I'm afraid that I cannot believe much of that. I think that you are Irish. You probably said the same thing to the last partner you had."

"By my soul, I did not. How could I? She was forty if she was a day, and ugly as sin."

His partner's laugh pealed out again. There was no resisting such an implication.

"Very nicely put, Mr. Lanyon. Now I know that you are Irish."

Just then Mrs. Beauchamp called to them:

"Come, come, Mr. Lanyon. I cannot allow this. You are monopolizing Miss MacAllister and delaying the play."

"By my faith," was the quick reply, "it's myself that would be mortial glad to monopolize her."

"Oh, Mr. Lanyon, this is shocking. On less than half an hour's acquaintance, too! If you say anything more like that I'll not be your partner."

"Then, if there's any danger of your leaving me, I'll take it all back with my mouth; but I'll think it in my heart just the same."

Carteret's pale face, a little paler to-day than usual, had the same expression of studied contempt as when he met Sinclair the evening before. His lips parted to utter some sarcastic remark when Mrs. Beauchamp interposed:

"It's your service, Miss MacAllister. Will you not begin?"

In a moment the lawn was animate with the quick-moving white figures of the players, and the blue and red of the attendant coolies. The contestants were all experts at the sport, and the set might have been prolonged indefinitely had it not been that Lanyon would not serve a fast ball to Mrs. Beauchamp. Again and again she assured him that she was quite capable of receiving a fast service and that he must not throw the game away. But the young lieutenant's Irish gallantry would not allow him to volley such balls at her as he drove at Carteret. On the other hand, the latter had no such scruples, but played to win. Consequently he and his partner did win rather handily.

When the set was over and others had taken their places, Carteret found an opportunity to engage Miss MacAllister in conversation as they were seated in the shade of the old fort.

"I was disappointed not to have the pleasure of being your partner," he said. "I had been looking forward to it all day."

Instantly there flashed into her mind the picture of him De Vaux had painted that morning at breakfast, and she could scarcely repress a laugh. She wondered to herself how much of the day he had been in a condition to think of her. But she answered readily:

"I should be very pleased to be your partner for a set, Mr. Carteret. There will probably be an opportunity later. You are an expert at tennis."

"We all ought to be experts in this place," he replied. "We get plenty of practice. Outside of office hours there are only two pastimes open to us--cards on wet days and tennis when the weather is fine."

"Why," she exclaimed, "I should not have thought that! From what I have seen of Tamsui, I think that it is quite lively. With dinners and tennis, with warships coming and going, with always the possibility of seeing a row among the Chinese or between them and somebody else, I think it must be really exciting living here. I should think that it would be great sport."

"You may think so, Miss MacAllister, from what you have seen of it. But the condition you have seen is quite abnormal. We do not have London merchants nor ladies from London drawing-rooms visiting us every week. Neither do we have the company of naval officers on ordinary occasions. Perhaps, if we had more ladies, we might have the attention and protection of our gallant seamen more frequently."

His voice had the sneering tone of the evening before. Miss MacAllister's eyes flashed ominously. He saw the danger signal and quickly changed the tone and the topic:

"Really, Miss MacAllister, as a general rule this place is beastly dull. There are so few to associate with. No matter how enjoyable their company may be at first, it simply becomes unbearable when you have no one else, don't you know?"

"Do you think that is a universal rule, Mr. Carteret?"

He saw that he had made a tactical blunder, beat a hasty retreat, and executed a flank attack:

"I assure you, Miss MacAllister, that I had reference only to those with whom one is forced to associate in the casual relations of life. We are not associated by choice, but by the caprice of fortune or by compulsion. And the realization of the compulsion makes the association the more unbearable. We get to hate the very sight of one another."

"I can quite understand that," she replied. "I learned that when I had to spend a year in a very select boarding-school, with a principal and teachers whom I hated, and not one girl of whom I could make a real friend. I was more alone than if I had been like Robinson Crusoe on his island."

He was quick to pursue the advantage:

"That is it exactly. I should be far less lonely if I were entirely alone or if I had only one companion, so long as that companion were congenial."

She looked sympathetically at him, but did not speak.

"That is the tragedy of life in the Far East," he continued. "That is why so many men take to drink."

She thought of the evening before and of what De Vaux had let out at breakfast. She said nothing; so he went on: