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Page 23
She looked about her at the silent garden, the deepening shadows,
the darkening sky. Above her head, now, high in the air were the
faintly rustling palm leaves. Behind the palms stretched the wall,
high and blankly impassable. She felt strange, unreal.... Her very
fright was unreal.
"Tell me," he was saying, his voice low and caressing, "are there
many girls like you--in your America?"
She tried to speak quite easily, quite simply. "You have been in
England and France, Captain Kerissen, and you have seen many
Americans traveling there."
"I have seen many--yes. But not like you." She looked swiftly at
him, then more swiftly away. His eyes were glowing with a look of
deep excitement; his teeth flashed white under his small, dark
mustache. "Shall I tell you how you appear beside those others?"
"No, thank you," the girl answered with a hurried crispness which
brought a stare and then a low laugh from him.
"You have been told so often?" he suggested.
"I never permit myself to be told at all!" Anger made her young
voice imperious, but her heart was beating furiously. Involuntarily
she quickened her steps and he reached his hand to her bare forearm
and held her back.
"Pardon--but you are too quick."
She stood rigid, some deep instinct warning her not to resist. The
situation had gone to the man's head, she felt dumbly; his courtesy
was only a scant veneer over that Oriental cast of view which, like
the Latin, reads every accident of propinquity as opportunity. His
hand fell away and they walked on in slower time. When he spoke his
voice betrayed the feeling quickening within him.
"Then I have a pleasure before me, for you will listen, please. To
me your sister Americans are like big, bright flowers which grow by
the wayside where every wind blows hard upon them. And each receives
the dust of the footsteps of many men till comes the one who shall
possess her. But he does not bear her away. He puts his name upon
her, but leaves her out in the same field where every passerby may
look and handle----"
"You are dreadfully rude," said Arlee clearly. "You don't understand
at all. I thought you knew better."
"Ah, I know! Was I not in England and did I not hear men talk--yes,
of sisters and wives with bold words and laughter? Not so of our
ladies--they are sacred names not to be spoken by another.... But I
do not wish to speak of these others of your race. I speak of you."
"Really, I would rather you would not speak of me."
"But I wish to tell you." His voice was no louder; it was even
lower, but it took on a note of authority. Arlee was silent, a chill
creeping up about her heart--like a rising tide....
"You are a flower upon a height," he said, and his tones were soft
again and gently caressing, "laughing at others because you know you
are so high above them, and so proud. The blue of the skies is in
your eyes, and the gold of the sun in your hair. You have a beauty
that is too bright to be endured--it burns a man's heart like a
flame.... It was never meant to shine in a common field. It must be
guarded, revered, adored--a princess upon a height----"
"You have an Oriental imagination," said Arlee Beecher, and prayed
God her voice did not tremble. "I must ask you not to pay me such
compliments while I am your guest."
"No?... Why not?"
"They--are embarrassing."
"Embarrassment is an emotion rare to find among your ladies--it is
the dewy bloom upon your own perfect innocence.... Ah, I wish you
spoke my language! I could tell you many things----"
"Your English is excellent," said the white-faced girl. "Did you
learn it at Oxford or before?"
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