Chapter IV: Part 4

In vain Percival sought to hold Bobby's attention. The tapers in her eyes were lighted for Andy, and he was obliged to undergo the new and intolerable sensation of sitting in a darkened niche and watching the candles burn at an adjoining shrine.

The slightest hint of deflection in one upon whom he had bestowed his favor maddened him. He had showered upon this ungrateful girl attentions the very husks of which would have sustained several English girls he knew through a lifetime of patient waiting. He recalled their unswerving loyalty with a glow at his heart.

Ah, he thought, one must look to England for ideal womanhood. Where else was to be found that beautiful deference, that blind reliance, that unswerving loyalty--At the word "loyalty" a stabbing memory of Lady Hortense punctured his eloquence.

During the afternoon he found it impossible to escape the games. The potato and three-legged races brought the contestants to his side of the deck, and his reading was constantly interrupted by an avalanche of noisy spectators who rushed through the cross passages from one side of the boat to the other, exhibiting a perfectly ridiculous amount of excitement.

Andy, it seemed, had only one more entry to win before claiming the day's championship.

"He'll get it!" Percival overheard the captain saying gleefully to Mrs. Weston. "None of 'em are in it with America when it comes to sports."

Percival flicked the ashes from his cigar, and, carefully adjusting his tie, rose, and made his way to the judges' table.

"How many more events are there?" he asked in a superior tone.

"One," was the answer.

"How many entries?"

"Two. Mr. Black and the Scotch gentleman."

"Make it three," said Percival, as if he were ordering cocktails.

In the confusion of preparing for the last and most elaborate feature of the day, Percival's enlistment was not discovered. It was not until the contestants ranged themselves in front of the judges' table that a buzz of fresh interest and amazement swept the deck. First came the Scot, lean, wiry, and deadly determined; then came Andy, plump and pink, with his fair hair ruffled, and a laughing retort on his lips for every sally that was sent in his direction. Last came the Honorable Percival, a distinguished figure in immaculate array, wearing upon his aristocratic features a look of contemptuous superiority.

"What are the rules of the game?" he inquired, looking into space.

"There's just one rule," called Captain Boynton from the background--"Get there."

"The American motto, I believe," said Percival, quietly, and the crowd laughed.

The Scot was the first to start, and Percival watched anxiously to see the nature of the race he had entered. He saw his adversary dash forward as the signal sounded, climb over a pile of upturned chairs, scramble under a table, scale a high net fence, then disappear around the deck, only to emerge later from the mouth of a funnel-shaped tunnel, through which his contortions had been followed by shrieks of merriment.

Percival realized too late what he had let himself in for. Not for worlds would he have subjected himself to such buffoonery had he known. It was not the sport of a gentleman; it was the play of a circus clown! He watched with horrified disgust as the Scot's grimy face and tousled head emerged from the canvas cavern.

"Four minutes and five seconds," called the umpire.

Andy Black stepped confidently forward amid a burst of applause.

"The champion Roly-Poly of the Pacific," some one called.

"The _Saluria's_ Little Sunbeam," suggested another.

Andy smiled blandly, and kissed his fingertips. The signal sounded, and he bounded off, bouncing from one obstacle to another like a rubber ball. It was only in the twenty-yard dash from the net fence to the canvas tunnel that he lost ground.

"Four minutes, two seconds," announced the umpire as Andy scrambled out on all fours.

At that moment Percival would willingly have exchanged places with the grimiest stoker in the hold. Was it possible that he had, of his own accord, placed himself in this absurd and undignified position for the sole purpose of defeating a common, commercial traveler who had dared to deflect the natural course of a certain damsel's smiles! He writhed under the ignominy of it. What if he were defeated? What if--

The signal sounded, and instinctively he hurled himself forward. As he scrambled over the upturned chairs he heard a sound that struck terror to his soul: it was the unmistakable hiss of tearing linen. The hastily made garments of G. Lung Fat had proved unequal to the strain put upon them. Percival lost his head completely when he realized that his waistcoat was split up the back from hem to collar, and that he had become an object of the wildest hilarity.

He might have fled the scene then and there, leaving Andy to enjoy his laurels undisturbed, had he not caught sight of Bobby frantically motioning him to go on. Setting his teeth grimly, he went down on all fours and scrambled under the table, then resolutely tackled that swaying, sagging network of ropes that barred his progress. Again and again he got nearly to the top, only to have his foot go through the wide bars and leave him hanging there in the most awkward and ungainly position. It seemed to him an eternity that he hung ignominiously, like a fly in a spider's web, while the crowd went wild with merriment.

Then suddenly all his fighting blood rose, and forgetting the spectators, and even forgetting Bobby, he doggedly grappled with those yielding ropes until he got a foothold, swung himself over the top, cleared the entanglement below, and made a flying dash for the yawning mouth of canvas at the far end of the deck. It was incredibly hot and suffocating inside, but he wriggled frantically forward, clawing and kicking like a crab. At last a dim light ahead spurred him to one final gallant effort.

"Four minutes!" called the umpire as the Honorable Percival Hascombe emerged, blinking and breathless, and staggered to his feet. His clothes were soiled and torn, his hair was on end, there was dust in his eyes, and dirt in his mouth.

The fickle audience went wild. The dark horse had won, and public favor immediately swung in his direction. But it was not the favor of the public that Percival sought; it was the homage of a certain rebellious maiden, who must be taught that he was the master of any situation in which he found himself.

Bobby was not slow to proffer her congratulations. She gave them with both hands, to say nothing of her eyes and her dimple.

"I pulled for you!" she whispered eagerly. "I almost prayed for you. I wouldn't have seen you beaten for the world."

As Percival, elated by her enthusiasm, stood shaking hands right and left, he felt a curious and unfamiliar warmth stealing over him. All these people whom he had looked upon until to-day as so many figureheads stalking about suddenly became human beings. He found, to his surprise, that he knew their names and they knew his. He sat on a table, swinging his feet in unison with a lot of other young feet, while he sipped lemonade from the same glass as Bobby Boynton.

As a matter of fact, the Honorable Percival Hascombe was experiencing a novel sensation. He was enjoying a sense of fellowship, to which all his life he had been a stranger.

XII

THE SONG OF THE SIREN

By the time the _Saluria_ anchored off Shanghai, the fires in Percival's bosom had assumed the proportions of a conflagration. No sooner were they seemingly conquered by the cold stream of reason that was poured upon them than they broke forth again with fresh and alarming violence.

On the launch coming up the Hwang-pu River he took the precaution of engaging Bobby Boynton's company not only for the day on shore, but for the evening as well. With hardened effrontery he bore the young lady away in exactly the high-handed manner so bitterly condemned in Andy Black at Yokohama.

The day on shore was one he was destined never to forget. The glamour of it suffused even material old China with a roseate hue. With gracious condescension he visited gaily decked temples and many-storied pagodas, he loitered in silk and porcelain shops, and wound in and out of narrow, ill-smelling streets, even allowing Bobby to conduct him through that amazing quarter known as Pig Alley. He not only submitted to all these diversions; he demanded more. He seemed to have developed an ambition to leave no place of interest in or about Shanghai unvisited.

Tiffin-time found them at a well-known tea-house in Nanking Road--a tea-house with golden dragons climbing over its walls and long wooden signs bearing cabalistic figures swinging in the wind like so many banners. Percival secured a table on the upper balcony, where they could look down on the passing throng, and here in the intimate solitude of a foreign crowd they had their lunch.

Bobby was too excited to eat; she hung over the balcony, exclaiming at every new sight and sound, and appealing to Percival constantly for enlightenment. Fortunately he had spent part of the previous day poring over a Shanghai guide-book, so he was able to meet her inquiries with the most amazing satisfaction.

"I don't see how any one human being can know as much as you do!" she exclaimed, with a look that Buddha might have envied.

"Even I make mistakes occasionally," said Percival, modestly. "Can't always be right, you know."

"But you are," she persisted; "you are always abominably right, and I am always wrong."

"Adorably wrong," amended Percival, assisting with the tea-things.

"Two, three, four?" she asked, holding up the sugar-tongs.

"Doesn't matter so long as I have you to look at."

Now, when an Englishman ceases to be particular about the amount of sugar in his tea, you may know he is very far gone indeed. By the time he had drained three cups of the jasmine-scented beverage and basked in the brilliance of Bobby's smiles through the smoking of two cigars, he was feeling decidedly heady.

"If we are going to the races, we really _must_ start," declared Bobby when she found the situation getting difficult.

"What's the use of going anywhere?" asked Percival, blowing one ring of smoke through another.

"Why, we are seeing the sights of Shanghai. You said you were crazy about China."

"So I am. You are quite determined on the races?"

"Quite," said Bobby.

Their way to the track lay along the famous Bubbling Well Road, and as they bowled along in a somewhat imposing victoria, with a couple of liveried Chinamen on the box, Bobby sat bolt upright, her cheeks flushed, and her eager eyes drinking in the sights.

It was a scene sufficiently gay to hold the interest of a much more sophisticated person than the untraveled young lady from Wyoming. The whole of society, it appeared, was on route to the races. The road was thronged with smart traps full of brilliantly dressed people of every nationality. There were gay parties from the various legations, French, Russian, Japanese, German, English, American. In and out among the whirling wheels of the foreigners poured the unending procession of native life, unperturbed, unconcerned. A Chinese lady in black satin trousers and gorgeous embroidered coat, wearing a magnificent head-dress of jade and pearls, rode side by side with a coolie who trundled a wheelbarrow which carried his wife on one side and his week's provisions on the other. Water-carriers, street vendors, jinrikisha-runners, women with bound feet, children on foot, and children strapped on the backs of their mothers, crossed and recrossed, surged in and out.

But the Honorable Percival concerned himself little with these petty details. To him China was only a pleasing background for Miss Roberta Boynton; he saw no further than her eager, smiling eyes, and heard nothing more distant than the ripple of her laughter.

At the races they found an absorbing bond of interest. The love of horse-flesh was ingrained in both, and the merits of the various ponies provoked endless discussion. Lights were beginning to twinkle on the bund when they drove back to the hotel.

"Where shall we go to-night!" asked Percival, as eager at the end of this eight hours' tete-a-tete as he had been at the start.

"To the ball, of course," said Bobby. "The hotel is giving it in honor of the _Saluria_."

"Heavens! what a bore! Can't we dodge it?"

"You can if you want to. Andy'll take me. He's just waiting to see if you renig."

"Renig?" repeated Percival.

"Yes," said Bobby--"fluke, back out; you know what I mean."

That settled it with Percival. Five minutes before the hour appointed he was waiting impatiently in one of the small reception-rooms to conduct Miss Boynton to that most abhorred of all functions, a public ball. What possible pleasure he was going to get out of standing against the wall and watching her dance with other men he could not conceive. He assured himself that he was acting like a fool, and that if he kept on at the pace he was going, Heaven only knew what folly he might commit in the four days that must pass before he reached Hong-Kong.

Hong-Kong! The word had but one association for him. It was the home of his eldest and most conservative sister, a lady of uncompromising social standards, who recognized only two circles of society, the one over which her mother presided in London, and the smaller one over which she reigned as the wife of the British diplomatic official in the land of her adoption.

At the mere thought of presenting Bobby to this paragon of social perfection, Percival shuddered. He could imagine Sister Cordelia's pitiless survey of the girl through her lorgnette, the lifting of her brows over some mortal sin against taste or some deadly transgression in her manner of speech. Of course, he assured himself it would never do; the idea of bringing them together was wholly preposterous. And yet--

A Chinese youth, with a handful of trinkets, slipped into the room, and furtively proffered his wares.

"Very good, number-one jade-stone. Make missy velly plitty. Can buy?"

Percival motioned him away, only to have him return.

"Jade-stone velly nice! Plitty young missy wanchee jade-stone."

"Did she say she wanted it?" demanded Percival, with sudden interest.

The boy grinned. "Oh, yes. Wanchee heap! No have got fifty dollar'. Master have got. Wanchee buy?"

Percival tossed him the money and lay the pendant on the table. Then he resumed his pacing and his disturbed meditations. If he could only keep himself firmly in hand during those next four days, all would be well. Once safely anchored in the harbor of his sister's eminently proper English circle, the song of the siren would doubtless fade away, and he would thank Heaven fervently for his miraculous escape. Meanwhile he listened with increasing impatience for the first flutter of the siren's wings,

"Wanchee Manchu coatt?" whispered an insidious voice at his elbow, and, looking down, he saw the enterprising lad with a pile of gorgeous silks over his arm and cupidity writ large in his narrow eyes.

"No, no; go away!" commanded Percival.

"Velly fine dragon coat. Him all same b'long mandarin. How much?"

Percival turned away, but at every step was presented with another garment for inspection. Despite himself, his artistic eye was caught and held by the beauty of the fabrics.

"How much?" he asked, picking up a marvelous affair of silver and gray, lined with the faintest of shell pinks. It was the exact tone and sheen to set Bobby's beauty off to the greatest advantage. The argument over the price was short and fierce, and Percival laid the coat beside the pendant on the table.

He promised himself to offset the effect of these gifts by a more detached and impersonal manner than he had shown Bobby during the day. So far, he congratulated himself, he had given her no occasion for false hopes. On the contrary, he had gone out of his way on several occasions to express his bitter disapproval of international marriages. When the hour came for them to part, his heart might be mortally wounded, but his conscience, save for a few scratches, would be uninjured.

A quick step in the corridor made him look up. Standing in the doorway was a vision of girlish beauty that had the acrobatic effect of sending his blood into his head and his heart into his eyes. She wore the diaphanous gown of white that he liked best, her hair was coiled at the exact angle he had prescribed, and at her belt were the orchids he had sent up half an hour before. No rhinestones in her hair, no gold beads on her slippers, nothing to mar the simplicity that her all too vivid beauty required. Percival's eyes appraised her at her full value. Even Sister Cordelia would have been propitiated by the sight.

"What's this lovely thing?" cried Bobby, pouncing upon the coat.

"Something I bought to be rid of a troublesome lad. Don't know what I shall do with it, exactly."

"Take it to your sister, of course,"

"She probably has heaps of them."

Bobby slipped her round, bare arms into the loose sleeves, and surveyed herself in the long mirror.

"Isn't that the prettiest thing you ever saw?" she asked, glancing at him over her shoulder.

"It is," said Percival, emphatically. His judgment about the becomingness of the color had, us usual, been unerring.

"I should be no end grateful," he said, "if you'd take it off my hands. My trunks are fearfully stuffed now."

"But I haven't any money," said Bobby, with characteristic frankness; "besides, we don't need things like that in Cheyenne."

"Silly girl! Do you think I have turned merchant, and have got wares for sale? The coat is for you."

Bobby gave a cry of delight, then she looked up dubiously.

"But is it all right for me to take a present like this? I never had anything so big given me--yes, I did, too!" She laughed. "A fellow from Medicine Bow sent me a barrel of mixed fruit once, with nuts and raisins in between, and ten pounds of candy on top!"

"Then why scruple at my gift?"

Her brow clouded. "But you said girls oughtn't to take things from men they weren't engaged to. You remember that day on deck you got me to give back Andy's scarf-pin?"

Percival cleared his throat.

"Quite a different matter," he said; "now, between you and me--"

Bobby shook her head as she took off the coat.

"No, I guess not. I want it so bad I can taste it, but I think you'd better keep it for somebody in the family."

Percival slipped the jade pendant into his waistcoat pocket, and tossed the coat on a chair.

"As you like," he said. "Shall we go to the ball-room?"

In his secret soul he was inordinately gratified. Of course she should not have accepted the coat, and he should not have tempted her. She had done exactly right in firmly adhering to his former instructions. Altogether she was a remarkable little person indeed.

The moment they appeared in the ballroom she was confiscated, and he had a miserable quarter of an hour watching her whirl from one masculine arm to another. For the first time dancing struck him as pernicious. He declared that the clergy had something on its side when it denounced the amusement as evil. He doubted gravely if he should ever permit a wife of his to dance.

"Mr. Hascombe, aren't you going to ask me to dance?" It was Bobby who had stopped before him, flushed and breathless.

"I don't dance at public balls," he said disapprovingly.

"Why not?" asked Bobby, in surprise.

"Hardly the thing. A person in my position, you know--"

"You mean because of the Honorable? How stupid! Let's pretend you aren't one just for to-night!"

"But I don't dance these dances, you see."

"That doesn't matter; I'll teach you."

"Really, now, I can't make a spectacle of myself."

"Nobody wants you to. We'll practise out here in the loggia. Come ahead!"

He was seized by two small, determined hands and drawn this way and that, apparently without the slightest method.

"But I haven't the vaguest idea what to do with my feet," he protested helplessly.

"Don't do anything with them; let them do something with you. Shut your eyes and listen to the music; let it get into your bones, and the first thing you know you will be doing it."

With British solemnity Percival closed his eyes and tried to feel the music. Suddenly he was aware that he was moving in rhythm to the insistent beat of the drum.

"That's it!" cried Bobby, excitedly. "You are doing the Grape-Vine; let yourself go. That's it!"

So intent was he upon keeping out of time instead of in it, that he was guided from the loggia into the ball-room before he knew it. His awakening came when a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder. He stopped indignantly. The ship's doctor had not only arrested the development of his new-found talent, but was actually dancing off with his partner!

"Most unwarrantable impertinence!" he stormed to the Scotchman, whom he joined at the door. "Clapped me on the shoulder quite as if I had been under suspicion for felony. Almost expected to hear him say, 'My man, you're wanted.' I shall demand satisfaction of the cub the instant the dance is over."

The Scotchman laughed. "He meant ye no harm. It's a trick they have in the States of changing partners. Watch the game; ye'll see."

"And I can take any man's partner away by simply laying my hand on his shoulder?"

This changed the complexion of things considerably. The Honorable Percival spent the remainder of the evening laying his hand upon the shoulder of whosoever claimed Bobby for a dance.

It was remarkable with what facility he acquired the new steps. He knew that he had a good figure and that he carried it with distinction. The admiring glances that followed his entrance into any public assembly made him pleasantly aware of the fact. To-night, however, if any of his thoughts turned upon himself, they were but stragglers from the main army that marched in solid file under Bobby's banner.

During the intervals when he could not dance with her he retired to the loggia, and thought about her. She was not only the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, but the most adorably responsive. He likened her poetically to an AEolian harp and himself to the wind.

No one, not even his fond mother, had accepted him so implicitly at his own valuation as Bobby. Other women frequently insisted upon their own interpretations. He looked upon this as a form of disloyalty. Lady Hortense had once decried his taste for Tennyson; that, and her persistent use of a perfume which he disliked had been symbolic to him of a difference in temperament. Bobby had no predilections for perfumes or poets. She blindly accepted his judgment of all things, and if she sometimes failed to conform to his wishes, it was through forgetfulness and not opposition. He gloried in her plasticity; after all, was it not among the chief of feminine virtues?

While he paced the loggia and thus recounted her charms, he became increasingly intolerant of the fact that his AEolian harp was being swept by _various_ winds. He thirsted for a complete monopoly of her smiles, of all her glances, grave and gay, of the thousand and one little looks and gestures that he had quite unwarrantably come to look upon as his own.

After all, why should he consider his family before himself? Why should he ever go back to England at all? It was the most daring thought he had ever had, and for a moment it staggered him. Lines from "Locksley Hall" began ringing in his ears:

"... Oh for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining-Orient when; my life began to heat:
Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shady, and palms in clusters, Knots of Paradise.
There the passions, cramp'd no longer, shall have scope and breathing
space;
I will take some savage woman--"

Of course, he told himself, Bobby wasn't exactly a savage woman; but then again she was, you know, in a way. She was from the point of view of Sister Cordelia. But why consult Sister Cordelia at all? Why not seek some "blossomed bower in dark purple spheres of sea"? Not in China; it was too beastly smelly. Not in Japan; mosquitos. Not in America; never! It should be some South Sea Island, where they would dwell, "the world forgetting, and by the world forgot."

Once an Englishman slips the leash of his sentiment and quotes even a line of poetry, it carries him far afield. In this case it led Percival a headlong chase over walls of tradition and barriers of pride. He begrudged every moment that must elapse before he had Bobby to himself, and told her of his great decision.

"But isn't it too late to be taking a walk?" she protested when the last dance was over, and he was urging a turn on the bund.

"Just a breath of fresh air. Won't take five minutes. Where's your wrap?"

"I haven't any but my steamer-coat. I don't suppose you could stand that."

"You will wear the Manchu coat," said Percival, with tender authority; "there's every reason why you should."

XIII

PERCIVAL PROCRASTINATES

The little park that stretched between the bund and the water-front way deserted save for a few isolated couples who had strolled out from the hotel to cool off after the heat of the ball-room. Percival and Bobby found a vine-clad summer-house where they could watch the tall ships riding at anchor in the bay, their riding-lights swaying amid the more stationary stars. Closer to the water were the bobbing lights of the sleeping junks, while behind them twinkled the myriad lights of that vast native city the hem of whose garment they were merely touching.

The setting was all that Percival's fastidious taste could desire, but now that he had "the time and the place and the loved one all together," he found an epicure's delight in lingering over his rapture. This hour had a flavor, a bouquet, that no other hour would ever contain, and he preferred to sip it deliriously moment by moment. He coaxed her to talk at length about himself, to put into her own words the impressions he had made upon her mentally, morally, and physically. He never tired of beholding in the mirror of her mind the very images he had placed before it.

"You are a perfect little wizard!" he exclaimed in ecstasy. "You read me like a book. Quite sure you aren't cold!"

"No," said Bobby; "but I'm getting awfully sleepy."

His pride took instant alarm. After all, it was not the hour to press his suit. He rose, and tenderly drew the shining folds of her wrap about her.

"I shall take you in. Can't allow you to lose your roses, you know. To-morrow I must take better care of you."

Bobby gave a sleepy little laugh.

"What is it!" he asked.

"I was just thinking how mad we are making the captain. He wouldn't speak to me all through dinner."

"I shall have a word to say to the captain to-morrow that will quite change his attitude."

"What sort of a word?"

"Can't you guess?"

Before Bobby could answer, their attention was arrested by angry shouts in the street behind them. A drunken sailor, evidently from an English gunboat, was in fierce altercation with his jinrikisha-man, and was announcing to the world, in language compounded of all the oaths in his vocabulary, that he wished to be condemned to Hades if any more pumpkin-headed, pig-tailed Chinks got another bob out of his pocket.

Percival was for hurrying his precious charge past the belligerents and into the hotel, but Bobby insisted upon seeing the end of it.

"That sailor is fixing to get into trouble," she cried. "He doesn't know what he is doing or saying."

"I dare say he'll manage very well," said Percival, urging her on.

"But he _isn't_ managing, He's making the coolie furious. Don't let him hit at him like that! See, he's caught hold of his queue!"

The patient Chinaman had received the supreme insult, and in a second he had flashed a short knife from his belt, and was lunging at the stupid, upturned face of the half-recumbent sailor.

Percival sprang forward and seized the descending arm. He was not quick enough to arrest the force of the blow, but he succeeded in deflecting its course, and the blade, which would have given the sailor a decent burial at sea, sharply grazed Percival's wrist, and buried itself in the side of the jinrikisha.

It was all so quickly done that by the time a crowd collected and the big Sikh policeman arrived in his yellow clothes and huge striped turban Percival had got Bobby safely into the hotel lobby. He was exasperated beyond measure that this very evening, of all, should have ended in his participation in a vulgar street brawl. So far he had succeeded in keeping Bobby from knowing that he was wounded, but the beastly scratch was bleeding furiously, and he had to keep his hand behind, him to prevent her from seeing it.

They hurried through the empty lobby and down the long corridor that led to the elevator. Bobby was full of excitement over the recent adventure and the part Percival had played in it.

"My, but you were quick!" she said as they went up on the elevator. "I had just time to shut my eyes and open them again, and it was all over."

"Nothing to speak of," said Percival, twisting his handkerchief tighter around his throbbing wrist.

"But you don't mind my being proud of you, do you?" asked Bobby as the elevator stopped at his floor. "When I see a man show courage like that, I just feel as if--as if I'd like to squeeze him."

Percival's left hand shot out and caught hers to his lips.

"Why, Mr. Hascombe!" she cried "What's the matter with your arm? No, I mean the other one."

"A mere scratch."

"But your sleeve's cut, and the handkerchief is all blood-stained. Why didn't you tell me you were hurt?"

"I assure you it is nothing. Quite all right in the morning. Breakfast with you at nine. Happy dreams!"

Bobby was not to be so easily put off. She insisted upon following him out of the elevator and inspecting the wound,

"Why, it's dreadful!" she cried. "And it must have been bleeding like this for five minutes! Quick! Where's your room?"

"But really, my dear girl, I can't allow this. You must get back into the lift straight away and go up to your room."

"I sha'n't do anything of the sort until you get Judson or a doctor or somebody."

Percival would have carried his point but for a certain dizziness that had come over him. He put out a hand to steady himself.

"Give me your key!" he heard Bobby saying, and the next instant his door was flung open, the lights were switched on, and he was staggering blindly toward the couch at the foot of the bed. Then there was a furious ringing of bells, a long wait, followed by the appearance of a sleepy Chinese night watchman.

"Gentleman hurt!" cried Bobby. "Get a doctor! Send somebody up here quick! Do you understand?"

"Me savvy," said the Chinaman, calmly. "Doctor no belong Astor Hotel. All same belong Oliental Hotel."

"I don't care where he belongs," Bobby cried impatiently. "Get him over the telephone. And send somebody up from the office, do you understand?"

"Oh, yes, me savvy," he said, with the imperturbability of his race.

Percival heard the man's footsteps dying in the distance, and he made a mighty effort to rouse himself.

"Silly of me to behave like this. Quite all right now, thanks. You must run away before any one comes."

"Why?" demanded Bobby.

"Looks rather queer your being here like this at midnight, you know. Wouldn't compromise you for the world."

Bobby was standing at his dressing-table searching for something, and she wheeled upon him indignantly.

"This is no time to be thinking about looks. You lie down and stop talking. Hold your arm up straight, like that. Keep it that way until I come."

He did as she told him, grasping his right wrist in his left hand; but the bright-red blood continued to spurt through his fingers, showing no signs of abating.

"If I could only find a string!" cried Bobby, tossing the contents of his bag this way and that. "Here's the strap on your toilet-case; perhaps it'll do."

She knelt beside the couch, and, ripping his sleeve to the elbow, hastily wrapped the leather thong twice about his forearm and slipped the strap into the buckle.

"I've got to hurt you," she said resolutely, pulling with nervous strength.

"It's most awfully good of you," murmured Percival, wearily, setting his teeth and closing his eyes. Despite the pain, the drowsiness was getting the better of him. He felt himself sinking through space, away from the world, from himself, and, worst of all, from the tender, reassuring voice that kept whispering words of comfort in his ear.

From time to time he was aware of bellboys coming and going, and of apparently futile inquiries for Judson, for the doctor, for Mrs. Weston, for the captain. Then for a long time he was aware of nothing whatever.

A sudden sharp pain in his arm roused him, and he opened his eyes. Bobby still knelt on the floor beside him, unflinchingly holding the strap in place.

"I won't have this!" he cried, struggling to sit up. "Your lips are trembling. It's making you ill."

She laid her free hand on his shoulder.

"Please lie still! They'll be here in a minute. I thought I heard the elevator. It won't be much longer."

There was the sound of hurrying feet in the hall, and the next instant a quick rap at the door. Bobby looked up with great relief as a burly English physician bustled into the room.

"How long have you had the tourniquet on, Madam?" he asked, stripping off his gloves and falling to work.

"The what?" said Bobby.

"The strap on his arm?"

"Oh, since a quarter past twelve." She got up from her knees stiffly, and shook out the shining folds of the Manchu coat. "It was the only thing I could think of; it's what the boys do back home for a rattlesnake bite."

The doctor's glance expressed complete and unqualified approval, but whether it was for her course of action or her very lovely and disturbed appearance it would be hard to say. As she slipped out of the room he turned to Percival.

"It's a severed artery, sir; no special harm done except the loss of blood. A few days' rest--"

"But I am sailing in the morning," murmured Percival. "Must patch me up by that time."

"We shall see. You don't seem to realize that you stood an excellent chance of remaining permanently in Shanghai."

"You mean?"

"I mean that you owe your life to that plucky little wife of yours."

Percival's heart leaped at the word. "She's not my wife, Doctor," he said, smiling feebly, "not yet."

XIV

NEPTUNE TAKES A HAND

The evolution of a hero is seldom a gradual process; he usually springs into public favor suddenly and dramatically. Not so with the Honorable Percival. He had to scramble ignominiously on all fours through a canvas tunnel, he had to brave the smiles of the on-lookers while he learned new steps on the ball-room floor, he had to participate in a street fight and have an artery severed before he was accorded the honor of a pedestal.

Bobby's graphic account of his defense of the drunken sailor, together with his own vigorous disavowal of any heroism in the affair, won for him a halo. After months of tedious anchorage in the dull harbor of seclusion, he found himself once more afloat on a sea of approval, tasting again the sweet savor of adulation, and spreading his sails to catch each passing breath of admiration.

Reclining in his deck-chair, with his arm in a sling and a becoming pallor suffusing his classic features, he became an object of the greatest solicitude to his fellow-passengers. The fluttering attentions he received warmed him into geniality, and in return he dispensed regal favors. He allowed Mrs. Weston to consult him concerning her presentation at court the following spring, he let Andy Black arrange his tie, and permitted Elise Weston to cut the leaves of his magazine. He graciously submitted to endless inquiries concerning his hourly progress, and even went so far as to accept two cream peppermints from the old missionary, who had acquired a new box.

The only drawback to this feast of brotherly love lay in the fact that he could not obtain the tete-a-tete he so earnestly desired with Bobby Boynton. She was always with him, to be sure, but so was everybody else, especially Mrs. Weston, who had been officially appointed to stand guard over the situation.

The captain had been stung to active measure by a chance remark of Andy Black's when they were alone at breakfast.

"Accept my condolences," that youth had lugubriously remarked. "You have missed the chance of your young life."

"How's that?" asked the captain.

"By not getting me for a son-in-law. Miss Bobby broke the news to me at the dance last night."

"Did she give you a reason?" asked the captain, arresting his cup in mid-air.

"I didn't need one. I've been rooming with it ever since we left Honolulu."

"She didn't say it was--"

"Oh, she as good as told me. Same old chestnut I've been handed out all my life. Said she cared for somebody else, but that she'd never forget me. I can't see much satisfaction in occupying a pigeon-hole in a girl's heart when, another fellow's got the key to it."

The captain, was concerned with something far more serious than Andy's matrimonial failures.

"What makes you think it's Hascombe?" he asked.

"What makes everybody think so?" asked Andy. "What makes him think so himself?"

The captain lost no time in finding Mrs. Weston, and laying the case before her.

"He's got to be headed off," he said anxiously. "It 's getting serious."

"It certainly looks so after yesterday and last night. But I can't for the life of me see why you oppose it. He's really a tremendous catch, and it's no wonder Bobby's head is turned. We are all a bit daft over him since he condescended to notice us."

"Suffering Moses!" exploded the captain. "Let any fool come along and shed a few drops of blood, then kiss his hand to the grand stand, and he's got the women at his feet! I thought Bobby had more sense than to cotton to that gilded rooster. I've a good mind to lock her up in her stateroom until we reach Hong-Kong."

Mrs. Weston shook her head and smiled.

"You can't manage her that way. She is the sweetest thing that ever was, but she is the kind of girl that can't be forced."

"Well, she shall be!" cried the captain, with savage determination. "I headed her off once, and I'll do it again. I tell you, I'd rather see her dead than married to an Englishman."

"Why, Captain Boynton!"

"I would. It's the Lord's truth. Her mother before her got caught by just such a high-headed British fool. She was welcome to him, and he to her, though Heaven knows she paid for it. If I thought my girl was going the same way--"

His square jaw quivered suddenly, and he turned away abruptly.

Mrs. Weston was wise enough to keep silent until he had mastered himself, then she said kindly:

"I don't wonder you feel as you do. You leave the matter to me, and I'll do my best to keep things in abeyance until we reach Hong-Kong. Once they are separated, the danger is practically over."

It is doubtful, however, whether the combined efforts of the captain, Mrs. Weston, and even Percival himself could have kept things _in statu quo_ had a timely typhoon not arrived and taken things into its own hands. It was about four in the afternoon that the sky darkened and the bright blue water turned to gray. The wind shifted and came on to blow dead ahead.

"What a queer light there is on everything!" cried Mrs. Weston, who was dutifully stationed between Bobby and Percival, doing sentry duty. "I wonder if it is going to blow up a storm."

"I hope so," said Bobby. "I love for things to happen."

Percival glanced despairingly at Mrs. Weston, who was beginning on a fresh ball of yarn. If she continued to sit there and knit the rest of her life, nothing ever would happen.

"I ought to close my port-hole if it's going to rain," she said. "Do you think it is?"

"Sure to," said Percival, with unusual alacrity. "Hard shower any minute."

Mrs. Weston rose reluctantly.

"Don't you think you'd better come down, too, Bobby, and close yours?"

"Mine's closed, thanks. I'll take your place and hold Mr. Hascombe's tea-cup."

Now, when a person with outrageously blue eyes is leaning on the arm of your steamer-chair, steadying your saucer for you, and the wind has blown everybody else off the deck except a bow-legged Chinese steward who is absorbed in tying things down, it does look as if Fate meant to be propitious.

Percival put his cup in his saucer and let his fingers touch the small hand that held it.

"It's quite worth while," he said, "getting a jab in the wrist, to have you looking after me like this. I wonder if you realize that you saved my life last night?"

"I bet I know what this is leading up to," cried Bobby, accusingly.

"What?" asked Percival, catching his lip between his teeth and looking at her with devouring eyes.

"A medal!"

"Much more serious. As a matter of fact, the truth is, I've been trying to get a minute alone with you all day. There's something I want--"

"Oh, yes, I know. It's that Manchu coat. You want it to pack, of course. I'll get it now."

But his fingers held hers fast to the saucer.

"You stupid child! You don't understand. It's yours, everything I have is--"

"Oh, goody! Here's the rain!" cried Bobby. "Andy bet me ten pounds of candy it wouldn't come before night. Quick, let me put your cup under the chair. Don't bother about the cushions."

"But there's something I've _got_ to say to you. You must listen to me!"

"I'll listen to anything you like in the music-room just so it isn't 'Tales from Hoffman.' Come, we'll have to hurry!"

Percival, with his passion once more arrested, strode after her furiously. He was intolerant of every moment that passed before be claimed her for his own, and unable longer to restrain his mad desire to fold her in his arms.

In the midst of these fervent anticipations he was unpleasantly aware of the increased motion of the ship. It was the first time he had felt that pitching, rolling motion since leaving the Golden Gate, and he shuddered involuntarily.

"Here's a cozy little corner all to ourselves!" cried Bobby, tossing the cushions into a nook in the music-room, and inviting him to a place beside her.

But Percival remained standing in the doorway, supporting himself with his free hand, his eyes fixed on space, and a leaden color spreading over his face.

"If you don't mind," he said slowly, "I think I'll go below. Feel the storm a bit in my head. Atmospheric pressure, you know."

"Of course you do," cried Bobby, all solicitude. "It's no wonder, after the blood you lost last night. Sit right down there until I find Judson."

XV

PERCIVAL RISES TO AN OCCASION

During the two nights and days that followed the typhoon had everything its own way. The sea bellowed with rage, and battalion after battalion of mountainous waves charged the ship, only to fall back and form again. For thirty consecutive hours the captain stayed on the bridge watching every variation in the glass, and keeping all of his Nelson features in active service. Whatever frivolities might fill his idle hours, there was no question of his attention to duty when the call came.

As for the Honorable Percival, he had ample opportunity during his long hours of solitary confinement to make a complete inventory of his varied emotions. Two things which should never be interrupted are a sneeze and a proposal. That second declaration, so ardently begun and so ruthlessly arrested, still hung in mid-air, and lying on his back in his darkened stateroom, he had ample time in which to survey it from every angle.

Never for a moment did he question the undying nature of his affection for Bobby. His emotion was too insistent and too consuming to be doubted. It was the proprieties that he questioned, and they all shook emphatic and disapproving heads. The proprieties in Grosvenor Square, to be sure, loomed rather dim through the distance; but that immediate propriety in Hong-Kong, toward whom he was speeding with every turn of the screw, towered ominously.

If only he could hold things in abeyance until after the _Saluria_ sailed from Hong-Kong, all might be well. It was of the utmost importance that he should not present Bobby to Sister Cordelia until the die was irrevocably cast. Faults that in Miss Boynton of the Big Gully Ranch would be glaring iniquities would, in the wife of the Honorable Percival Hascombe, dwindle away to charming eccentricities.

A daring plan occurred to him. With proper strategy he might go down to see the steamer off, get left on board, have the return trip in uninterrupted bliss with Bobby, then boldly cable from America that he had met his fate and succumbed to it, and that remonstrances were useless. The scheme appealed to him the more he considered it. Cablegrams were necessarily unemotional, and by the time letters were exchanged, the proprieties would probably have decided to accept the will of Providence and try to make the best of dear Percy's strange choice of an unknown American girl.

In the meanwhile he would devote all his energies to fitting her for the honor about to be conferred upon her, For he had quite given up the idea of the "blossomed bower in dark purple spheres of sea," and had definitely decided to take her back to England as the future mistress of Hascombe Hall. All he asked was six months in which to cut and polish his priceless gem.

It was not until the evening before the _Saluria_ was due in Hong-Kong that the sea got over its fit of temper and decided to make that last night the most beautiful one of the crossing. Everybody was down for the farewell dinner. Even those who had been invisible for two days emerged from their state-rooms like gorgeous butterflies from their cocoons. Speeches were made, toasts were drunk, and a general air of festivity prevailed.

Percival raged inwardly at the length of the dinner. The golden moments were racing by, and he was in a fever to get Bobby away to himself, he had decided on a course which he felt did credit to his power of self-control. He would permit himself the luxury of showing her that her affection for him was wholly returned, without in any way committing himself to a definite engagement. He would, in short, ask her to accept a sort of promissory note on his affections, to be presented at any time after the steamer left Hong-Kong.

It was ten o'clock before he contrived, to escape Mrs. Weston's vigilant eye and whisk Bobby off to a certain favored nook on the boat-deck just outside the captain's state-room. Here they had spent many happy evenings, notwithstanding the fact that their figures, silhouetted against the light, had never failed to provoke the captain to a profanity that was not always inaudible.

To-night, however, the captain was detained below, and they had the entire Yellow Sea to themselves as they sat on a projecting ledge and leaned their elbows comfortably on the rail.

It was an enticing night, with nothing left of the recent storm save a subtle thrill that still lingered in wind and wave. Overhead spread a canopy of luminous, subtropical stars; in undisturbed silence they gazed up at their brilliance. From below floated faint strains of music mingling with the sound of rippling: water.

"And to think it's our very last night!" murmured Bobby, her chin on her palm. "I'll never bear 'La Paloma' that I sha'n't think of this trip and of you."

Percival dared not answer. He had reached that stage when, according to the philosopher, the moonlight is a pleasing fever, the stars are letters, the flowers ciphers, and the air is coined into song. He regarded her gaze as she bent it upon the stars as the most exquisitely pensive thing he had ever behold.

"My! but there are some dandy billiard-shots up there!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Do you see that lovely carom over there beyond the Dipper?"

"I am not thinking of caroms," he said impatiently, "I am thinking of you."

"What have I done now?" she asked indignantly.

"You've made me forget that there's anything else in the whole universe but just you!"

"And now you've got to begin to remember," said Bobby, sympathetically.

He searched her face for a clue as to what was passing in her mind, but he found none.

"You are a most awfully baffling girl," he said. "Sometimes I can't determine whether you are subtle or merely ingenuous."

"I'd give it up," advised Bobby.

"But I sha'n't give it up. I sha'n't be content until I know every little corner of your mind and heart."

She stirred uneasily. From, the way he was looking at her it was evidently a good thing that his near arm was in a sling.

"You need a cigar," she said soothingly. "Get one out; I'll light it for you."

He obediently produced his cigar-case, and together they selected a cigar. She made a great point of cutting off the end, and then, when he had got it into his mouth, she struck a match and, sheltering the blaze with her scarf, held it close. The sudden intimacy of that beautiful face in the little circle of light, with the darkness all around, was quite too much for Percival. He looked straight into her eyes for one resolution-breaking second, then he blew out the match and catching her to him, passionately kissed those smiling, upturned lips.

"Mr. Hascombe!" she protested, shrinking away; but Percival had made his leap and nothing could stop him.

"You are mine!" he cried rapturously, pressing her hand again and again to his lips. "It's all quite right, my darling. Don't be frightened. We shall be married any time, anywhere you say, to-morrow, if you like, in Hong-Kong."

"But, Mr. Hascombe--"

"Not Mr. Hascombe. Percival, Percy, if you will. Fancy! Love at first sight. One glance on those desolate plains, and you were mine!"

"But I'm not. That's what I'm trying to tell you."

He looked at her fatuously. "But you will be! My little lady of the manor! My beautiful little mistress of Hascombe Hall!"

She struggled away from him, and stood at bay.

"How _can_ you talk to me like this?" she cried, her voice trembling with indignation, "after what I told you that day in the wind-shelter?"

"In the wind-shelter?" He looked at her in bewilderment.

"Yea, about Hal Ford and the captain and all that. Why, you promised to help me, and now--"

"Hal Ford?" repeated Percival, dazed. "What has he to do with it?"

"More than anybody else in the world. He's waiting for me in Wyoming, and I'm counting the days and the hours and the minutes until I get back to him. I thought you understood, and were helping me bring the captain around."

He stood before her too stunned to speak.

Sheer amazement for the moment crowded out the pain.

"But--but don't you love me?" he stammered at last.

"Of course I don't," said Bobby, almost indignantly; "I never have loved anybody, and I never will love anybody but Hal."

Then Percival realized that it was quite possible for lightning to strike twice in the same place. He felt a sudden pain in his throat, a burning under his lids, and he sat down limply.

"I'm so sorry!" whispered Bobby, putting her arm impulsively around his heaving shoulders. "I thought we were playing a game. I thought you understood. Please forgive me, Mr. Hascombe! Please! Won't you?"

He shook off her arm and stood up. He was whiter than he had been on the night of the accident, but he managed to achieve a smile.