At four o’clock Dan telephoned his home and ascertained from Sooey Wan
that Tamea and Maisie had gone out together.
He decided, therefore, to return to his office and look over the mail;
perchance he might find there some comforting light on the rice
situation.
As he came into the general office his secretary called to him that Mr.
Mellenger was in his office, waiting to see him; that he had been
waiting there since one o’clock.
Dan nodded comprehendingly and walked into the ambuscade. Mellenger was
seated in Dan’s chair. He had his feet up on the window sill and in his
left hand he held a cigar.
“Well, old horse thief,” he murmured with lazy cordiality, “you’ve given
me quite a wait. Have you told the story to any other newspaper?”
“What story, you fat parasite?”
“Romantic skipper, leprosy, suicide, lovely half-caste daughter of royal
blood, to be adopted by well-known young business man of highest social
standing. Where is her photograph, and if no photo be available, where
is she?” He touched with his toe a camera on the floor beside him.
“Great story,” he continued. “Front page stuff. Got to give it a
spread.”
“I could spread your nose for news all over your impudent countenance,”
Dan retorted irritably. “There must be no publicity on this matter,
Mel!”
“Got to be, my son. The doctor of the public health service who examined
your shipmaster yesterday boarded the Moorea this morning to remove the
man to quarantine, and was informed by the mate that the leprous one had
gone over the rail and failed to come up. That doctor suspects Larrieau
has escaped—and you know they can’t afford to have a leper running
around on the loose. All the water front reporters have part of the
story from the doctor and part from old Casson and they’re satisfied
with that, but I’m here to get the facts.”
“I understand you’ve been here since one o’clock.”
Mellenger nodded. “My day off, Dan, but the city editor knew how close
you and I have always been, so he called me up at my hotel and asked me
to get the story.”
“Call him up and tell him that I decline to be interviewed.”
“Sorry, but I must interview you. I’ve already interviewed by telephone
old Casson, Miss Morrison, Mrs. Pippy, Julia, Sooey Wan and Graves. The
crew of the Moorea I have seen personally. I’ve got a crackerjack story
but I want a better one. Sooey Wan said he thought you’d marry the queen
about a week from tomorrow.”
“That Chink is absolutely out of control.”
“You leave him alone. He’s a friend of mine. And you’ll be interviewed!”
He puffed at his cigar and looked sorrowfully out over the roofs of the
city. “Only one way to handle a newspaper man,” he ruminated. “Receive
him, ignore him or kill him. Ah, to be rich and beloved by a queen—to
dwell in marble halls, with vassals and serfs rendering snappy service!”
“Mel, don’t be an ass. Don’t insist upon injecting a romantic note into
this story.”
“Sooey Wan says he’ll back her against the field at a hundred to one,
and any time Sooey has a celestial hunch I’ll play it.”
“Mel, you shouldn’t discuss my private affairs with my servants——”
The knight of the pad and pencil waved him into silence. “Sooey Wan
isn’t a servant, Dan. He’s an institution who accepts a hundred and
fifty dollars a month from you just to please you and perpetuate the
institution. Why shouldn’t the old idol discuss you with me? Haven’t I
been dining at your house every Thursday night for ten years? Sooey Wan
knows I think almost as much of you as he does. Come, I’m listening.”
In five minutes the tale was told.
“Her photograph,” Mellenger insisted.
“You cannot have it.”
“One of the crew—by name Kahanaha—found this one for me in the late
skipper’s desk,” the imperturbable Mellenger informed him, and produced
a photograph of Tamea, hibiscus-crowned, barefooted, garbed in a dotted
calico Mother Hubbard.
“Hideous as death,” Dan growled and snatched at it.
But Mellenger whisked it away. “It is, as you say, hideous, but if no
other photograph is available we shall be forced regretfully to use it.
Woodley, of the Chronicle, has one like it, but I know I can prevail
upon him to hand it back for something more recent and not so colorful.”
“He shall have it.”
“You understood I couldn’t permit Woodley to scoop me on the
photograph.”
There was a knock at the door and Miss Mather entered. “Miss Morrison
and Miss Larrieau are in the general office, asking to see you, Mr.
Pritchard.”
“God is good and the devil not half bad,” murmured Mellenger and picked
up his camera. “Certainly, Miss Mather. Admit the ladies, by all means.”
To Dan he said: “I’ve always wished I might live to see a queen enter a
room. Tall, stately, majestic, coldly beautiful, they sweep through the
door with a long undulating stride—Judas priest!”
“_Chéri!_ Look at me, Dan.” From the door, violently flung open, Tamea’s
golden voice challenged his admiration. For one breathless instant she
stood, alert, seemingly poised for flight, a glorious creature
gloriously garbed, her arms held toward him, beseeching his approval;
the next she was rushing to him, to fling those arms around his neck and
implant a chaste salute upon each cheek.
She thrust him from her, ignored Mellenger and struck a pose.
“There, dear one,” she pleaded, “is your Tamea, then, so much uglier
than the women of your own race?”
“You are perfectly glorious, Tamea.”
“As the aurora borealis,” Mellenger spoke up.
Tamea, seemingly not aware of his presence until now, turned upon him
eyes which frankly sought a confirmation of the enthusiasm and pride she
read in Dan’s. “You like me, too?”
“Queen, you’re adorable.”
He glanced past her to Maisie Morrison, standing, flushed and faintly
smiling, in the doorway. Maisie was gazing with an eager intensity at
Dan Pritchard, who saw her not. Mellenger twitched the tail of Dan’s
coat, and the latter, as if summoned out of a trance, turned and gazed
at him inquiringly.
“Introduce me, fool, introduce me!” Mellenger suggested, and Dan
complied.
Maisie acknowledged the introduction with a cordial nod and a weary
little smile, but Tamea thrust out her long, beautiful hand. “How do you
do, Mr. Mel. How are all your people? Very well, I hope.” She swung
around to give him a view of her from the back.
“Marvelous,” he declared. “Your Majesty is so beautiful I must make a
picture of you at once.”
With the adroitness of his profession he set his camera up on the
telephone stand, posed Tamea where the late afternoon sun shone through
the window and photographed her half a dozen times; then, with a promise
to Tamea to send her prints, he bowed himself out to have the films
developed and write his story.
Dan in the meantime had provided seats for both his visitors.
“So that’s Mark Mellenger,” said Maisie. “I wish he had stayed longer. I
have a curiosity to know anybody who loves you, Dan.”
“Old Mel is the salt of the earth,” he declared warmly. “When we were in
college together he was editor of the college daily and I was by way of
being a cartoonist. In those days we were the heroes of the campus, and
thoughtless enthusiasts used to predict for each of us the prompt
acquisition of a niche in the Hall of Fame. Mel was to write the great
American novel and I was to create riots among millionaires anxious to
buy my pictures.” He shrugged ruefully, nor did he note Maisie’s wistful
smile as he turned to the radiant Tamea. “I’ll paint you, you tropical
goddess,” he soliloquized audibly. “You’ve had a fine time in the shops
today, eh, my dear?”
“It was very wonderful, Dan Pritchard.”
Dan turned to Maisie. “You’re so good and kind, Maisie, and your taste
is always so exquisite. In this instance it is more than exquisite. It
is exotic.”
“I cannot claim credit for it, Dan. All I did was bring Tamea to the
best shops. What she is wearing is entirely of her own selection.”
“But, Maisie, how could she?”
“You forget that Tamea is half French. She has been born with a positive
genius for artistic adornment.”
He and Tamea exchanged approving smiles. “And is our Tamea an
extravagant girl?” he queried.
“Tamea,” said Maisie bluntly, “would bankrupt Midas.”
“For money,” quoth Tamea, “I care not that much!” She snapped her
fingers. “But why should I love money? Is money not to be used to make
men happy and women beautiful in the eyes of their men, that they may
hold them against other women?”
“I suppressed your ward’s spending frenzy as well as I could, Dan, but
nevertheless we spent nearly two thousand dollars.”
Dan came close to Maisie. He had noticed for the first time how tired
she looked; in her weariness he detected a wistfulness and a repression
that told him Maisie’s patience had been sorely tried. “I suspect your
work today has required all that you had of fortitude and courage,
Maisie.” He pinched her pale cheek and then patted the spot he had
pinched. “You’re a great comfort to me, Maisie.”
“Well, that helps, Dan. I think if Tamea had not been permitted to dash
home with her purchases, array herself in fine raiment and return here
to dazzle you, the day would have been quite spoiled for her. The
excitement has been good for her, I think. She has not had time to
grieve for her father.”
“My father dwells happily in Paliuli with my mother. I will not grieve
for him again. I will live now to be happy.”
“And make others happy, too, dear?” Maisie suggested.
“_Certainement!_ But first I must know others and learn how to make them
happy.”
“We will be patient and teach you, Tamea. By the way, Dan, it’s time to
close down your desk, isn’t it? I’ll leave Tamea to you now until you
need me again.”
She gave him her hand and he noticed it was very cold.
“Poor old dear,” he whispered as he escorted her into the hall. “I’ve an
idea you’ve had the very devil of a day.”
“Naturally. I went shopping with an imp, didn’t I?”
He raised his extra high eyebrow a trifle higher. “Is she very hard to
manage?”
“She is.”
“Any hope at all?”
“I’m afraid I’m not a fair judge, Dan. Every little while she grows
impulsively angelic. She doesn’t like me a bit, yet today, after my maid
Céleste had come over and done the imp’s hair, Tamea assured me I was
very sweet and kissed me. She has a perfect passion for having her own
way.”
“I’ll have to be firm with her, Maisie.”
“Don’t be humorous, Dan. In her hands you are as clay.”
“Nonsense! She’s just a simple child of nature. With tactful
handling——”
Maisie was suddenly furious. “Oh, you’re such a helpless, lovable booby!
You are the one man in this world whom Providence has selected as the
rightful receiver of gold bricks. Why did you take on this frightful
responsibility? Wouldn’t it have been far simpler and less expensive to
have urged upon her father the wisdom of sending her back to her
outlandish island to queen it over the cannibals instead of——”
“Instead of whom, Maisie?”
“Instead of setting your little world by the ears? You just cannot begin
to imagine the terrific time I had inducing Mrs. Pippy to remain.”
“Deuce take Mrs. Pippy!” he protested. “She ought to thank her lucky
stars for the chance to remain. The first time she met Tamea she looked
down her nose at the child——”
“What you do not seem to comprehend, Dan, is that Tamea is _not_ a
child.”
“Well, Maisie, all I’ve got to say is that whether Tamea be a child or a
woman, an imp or an angel, I promised her father I’d look after her, and
I’m going to do it. If she refuses to be directed, if she declines to be
obedient, I’ll——”
“Yes, you’ll——”
“You do not like her, Maisie?”
“Oh, I do not dislike her. She merely startles me. She is such a flashy,
exotic, alien sort of person, voicing whatever thoughts pop into her
head, and with the most extraordinary ideas and outlook on life. She
told me all about an Englishman in Riva who was madly in love with her.
He was a drunken profligate, and she would have none of him because he
was dull and stupid, not because he was such an out-and-out scoundrel.
She speaks of sinful people as impersonally as we would of some
unfortunate who has measles or tuberculosis.” He laughed. “I suppose you
realize, Dan, that to keep Tamea in your home hereafter will be to
invite gossip and criticism from those who do not know you so well as we
do.”
“But what shall I do with the girl?”
“Send her to a hotel or a convent,” was Maisie’s suggestion.
“Very well, Maisie. You spoke of a convent. That’s a splendid idea. A
convent’s the very place for Tamea. I wonder where I might find a good
one.”
Maisie brightened perceptibly. “I’ll look one up for you.”
She gave him her hand and he pressed it tenderly. “You’re mighty sweet,”
he murmured. “I do appreciate you tremendously. Good night, dear.”
Instantly there was in her face a flash of the Maisie of yesterday, the
light he had seen there when he kissed her. “Good night, booby,” she
whispered. “Think of me once in a while.”
“I think of you more frequently than that.”
“I’m glad.”
“You nuisance! You interfere with my conduct of business.”
“I rejoice in my mendacity. You might walk to the elevator with me,
Dan.”
He did, and they talked there five minutes longer before Maisie finally
left him.