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Page 25
As she was buttering a last crumb of toast the girl re-entered with
a box from the florist. Her white teeth flashing at Arlee in a smile
of admiring interest, she broke the cord with thick fingers and
Arlee found the box full of roses, creamy pink and dewy fresh. The
Captain's card was enclosed, and across the back of it he had
written a message:
I am sending out for some flowers for our guest and I
hope that they will convey to her my greeting. If there
is anything that you would have, it is yours if it is in
my power to give. My sister is indisposed, but will visit
you when her indisposition will permit. This afternoon I
will see you and report the result of our protests to the
authorities. Until then, be tranquil, and accommodate
yourself here.
A tacit apology, thought Arlee, pondering the dull letter a moment,
then dropping it to touch the roses with light fingers. The young
man's wits had evidently returned with the sun. He had utterly lost
them last night with the starshine and the shadows and his Oriental
conception of the intimacy of the situation--but, after all, he had
too much good sense not to be aware of the folly of annoying her.
Her cheeks flushed a little warmer at the memory of the bold words
and the lordly hand on her arm, and her heart quickened in its
beating. She had certainly been playing with fire, and the sparks
she had so ignorantly struck had lighted for her an unforgettable
glimpse of the Oriental nature beneath all its English polish, but
she imagined, very fearlessly, that the spark was out. She was not a
nature that was easily alarmed or daunted; beneath her look of
delicate fragility was a very sturdy confidence, and she had the
implicit sense of security instinct in the kitten whose blithe days
have known nothing but kindness. Yet she felt herself tremendously
experienced and initiated....
She wrote back a word of thanks for the flowers and a request for
writing paper and ink, and when they were brought she wrote three
most urgent letters, and after an instant's hesitation a fourth--to
the Viceroy himself. Feeling that his mail might be bulky, she
marked it "Immediate" in large characters and gave them to the maid,
who nodded intelligently and shuffled away.
It was very odd, she thought then, that she had no letters. By now
the Evershams must surely have written--she had begged them to....
But she was _not_ going to be silly and panicky, she determinedly
informed that queer little catch in her side which came at the
thought of her isolation, and humming defiantly she sat down at the
white piano and opened the score of a light opera which she knew:
Say not love is a dream,
Say not that hope is vain ...
She had danced to that tune last night--no, the night before
last--danced to it with that extraordinarily impulsive young man
from home--for all America was now home to her spirit. And she had
promised to see him last night. She wondered what he had thought of
her absence.... She could imagine the Evershams dolefully deploring
her rashness, yet not without a totally unconscious tinge of proper
relish at its prompt punishment. They were such dismal old dears!
They _would_ complain--they must have made her the talk of the hotel
by now. Robert Falconer would enjoy that! And his sister and Lady
Claire would ask about her, and Lady Claire would say, "How
odd--fancy!" in that rather clipped and high-bred voice of hers....
But she was _not_ going to think about it!
She opened more music, stared wonderingly at the unfamiliar pages,
read the English translation beneath the German lines, then pushed
them away, her cheeks the pinker. They were as bad as French
postcards, she thought, aghast. Whose room was this, anyway? Whose
piano was this? Whose was the lacy neglig�e she had worn and the
gossamer lingerie the maid had placed in the chiffonier for her? Was
she usurping her hostess's boudoir?
She began to walk restlessly up and down the room, feeling time
interminable, hating each lagging second of delay.
Then came a tray of luncheon, and lying upon it a yellow envelope.
With an eagerness that hurt in its keenness she snatched it up and
tore out the folded sheet. Her eyes leaped down the lines. Then
slowly they followed them again:
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