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Why don't you come to China as I went to America with an open mind?" "You're on," said O'Higgins, briskly. "I'll engage you for four days. To-day is for the sights; the other three days lessons. How's that strike you?" "Very well, sir. At least I can give you a glimmer." A smile broke the set of Ah Cum's lips. "I'll take you into a Chinese home.
She possessed it, astonishing fact! She had summoned this energy so continuously during the past four weeks that now it was abiding; she knew that it would always be with her, on guard. And immeasurable was the calm evolved from this knowledge. The light touch of Ah Cum's hand upon her arm broke the thread of retrospective thought; and her gray eyes began to register again the things she saw.
That she had not bought one piece of linen subtly established in Ah Cum's mind the fact that she had no home, that the instinct was not there, or she would have made some purchase against the future.
There were three other ships at anchor; but as two would be making Shanghai and one rounding to Singapore two days hence, it was logically certain that no fugitive would seek haven in one of these. But whither The Tigress was bound or who the owner was lay beyond the reach of Ah Cum's deductions. He did not particularly care. It was enough that Spurlock had been taken aboard The Tigress.
Many wrinkles appeared at the corners of Ah Cum's slant eyes as if the sun hurt but the rest of his face remained as passive as a graven Buddha's. Ah Cum was himself puzzled. Why hadn't he admitted that he recognized the photograph? What instinct had impelled him swiftly to assume his Oriental mask? "Why?" asked O'Higgins. "What's the particular dope?"
Of course, there could be only one ending to such a bout with liquor, and that ending had come perhaps suddenly but not surprisingly. But the girl stood outside the circle of Ah Cum's knowledge rather profound of human impulses. Somehow logic could not explain her.
A bobbing lantern, crossing the bridge for she had not drawn the curtain attracted her attention. She turned off the light and approached the window. She saw a pole-chair; that would be this Mr. Taber returning. Evidently Ah Cum's luck had held good. As she stared her eyes grew accustomed to the night; and she discovered five persons instead of four. She remembered Taber's hat.
He wisely refrained from questioning the manager of the Victoria. He feared to antagonize that distinguished person. The Victoria was Ah Cum's bread and butter. The telegram dispatched, his obligation cancelled, Ah Cum proceeded homeward, chuckling occasionally. The Yale spirit! James Boyle O'Higgins was, as the saying goes, somewhat out of luck.
He was never drunk in the accepted meaning of the word; rather he walked in a kind of stupefaction. Supposing Ah Cum's luck failed for once? The manager made a gesture of dismissal, and added up the bill for the Misses Jedson, who were returning to Hong-Kong in the morning. Sidney Carton, thought Ruth, in pursuit of a sing-song girl!
But a mandarin, in his palanquin and preceded by an orderly mounted on a short-legged pony, and guarded front and rear by forty wicked-looking soldiers armed with carbines, has precedence so instantly accorded him that the clients of Ah Cum's third son are almost precipitated sideways into a row of shops.
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