The astonishing collapse of Spurlock created a tableau of short
duration. Then the hotel manager struck his palms together sharply,
and two Chinese "boys" came pattering in from the dining room. With
a gesture which was without any kind of emotional expression, the
manager indicated the silent crumpled figure on the floor and gave
the room number. The Chinamen raised the limp body and carried it
to the hall staircase, up which they mounted laboriously.
"A doctor at once!" cried Ruth excitedly.
"A doctor? What he needs is a good jolt of aromatic spirits of
ammonia. I can get that at the bar," the manager said, curtly. He
was not particularly grateful for the present situation.
"I warn you, if you do not send for a doctor immediately, you will
have cause to regret it," Ruth declared vigorously. "Something more
than whisky did that. Why did you let him have it?"
"Let him have it? I can't stand at the elbow of any of the guests
and regulate his or her actions. So long as a man behaves himself,
I can't refuse him liquor. But I'll call a doctor, since you order
it. You'll be wasting his time. It is a plain case of alcoholic
stupor. I've seen many cases like it."
He summoned another "boy" and rumbled some Cantonese. Immediately
the "boy" went forth with his paper lantern, repeating a cry as he
ran--warning to clear the way.
"Have the aromatic spirits of ammonia sent to Mr. Taber's room at
once," Ruth ordered. "I will administer it."
"You, Miss Enschede?"--frankly astonished that one stranger should
offer succour to another.
"There is nobody else. Someone ought to be with him until the
doctor arrives. He may die."
The manager made a negative sign. "Your worry is needless."
"It wasn't the fumes of whisky that toppled him out of his chair.
It was his heart. I once saw a man die after collapsing that way."
"You once saw a man die that way?" the manager echoed, his recent
puzzlement returning full tide. Hartford, Connecticut; she had
registered that address; but there was something so mystifyingly
Oriental about her that the address only thickened the haze behind
which she moved. "Where?"
"That can wait," she answered. "Please hurry the ammonia;" and Ruth
turned away abruptly.
Above she found the two Chinamen squatted at the side of the door.
They rose as she approached. She hastened past. She immediately
took the pillows from under the head of the man who had two names,
released the collar and tie, and arranged the arms alongside the
body. His heart was beating, but faintly and slowly, with ominous
intermissions. All alone; and nobody cared whether he lived or
died.
She was now permitted freely to study the face. The comparisons
upon which she could draw were few and confusingly new, mixed with
reality and the loose artistic conceptions of heroes in fiction.
The young male, as she had actually seen him, had been of the
sailor type, hard-bitten, primordial, ruthless. For the face under
her gaze she could find but one expression--fine. The shape of the
head, the height and breadth of the brow, the angle of the nose,
the cut of the chin and jaws, all were fine, of a type she had
never before looked upon closely.
She saw now that it was not a dissipated face; it was as smooth and
unlined as polished marble, which at present it resembled. Still,
something had marked the face, something had left an indelible
touch. Perhaps the sunken cheeks and the protruding cheekbones gave
her this impression. What reassured her, however, more than
anything else, was the shape of the mouth: it was warmly turned.
The confirmed drunkard's mouth at length sets itself peculiarly; it
becomes the mark by which thoughtful men know him. It was not in
evidence here, not a sign of it.
A drunken idea, Ah Cum had called it. And yet it was basically a
fine action. To buy the freedom of a poor little Chinese slave-girl!
For what was the sing-song girl but a slave, the double slave of
custom and of men? Ruth wanted to know keenly what had impelled the
idea. Had he been trying to stop the grim descent, and had he dimly
perceived that perhaps a fine deed would serve as the initial
barrier? A drunken idea--a pearl in the midst of a rubbish heap.
That terrible laughter, just before his senses had left him!
Why? Here was a word that volleyed at her from all directions,
numbed and bewildered her: the multiple echoes of her own first
utterance of the word. Why wasn't the world full of love, when love
made happiness? Why did people hide their natural kindliness as if
it were something shameful? Why shouldn't people say what they
thought and act as they were inclined? Why all this pother about
what one's neighbour thought, when this pother was not energized by
any good will? Why was truth avoided as the plague? Why did this
young man have one name on the hotel register and another on his
lips? Why was she bothering about him at all? Why should there be
this inexplicable compassion, when the normal sensation should have
been repellance? Sidney Carton. Was that it? Had she clothed this
unhappy young man with glamour? Or was it because he was so alone?
She could not get through the husks to the kernel of what really
actuated her.
Somewhere in the world would be his people, perhaps his mother; and
it might soften the bitterness, of the return to consciousness if
he found a woman at his bedside. More than this, it would serve to
mitigate her own abysmal loneliness to pool it temporarily with
his.
She drew up a chair and sat down, putting her palm on the damp,
cold forehead. A bad sign; it signified that the heart action was
in a precarious state. So far he had not stirred; from his
bloodless lips had come no sound.
At length the manager arrived; and together he and Ruth succeeded
in getting some of the aromatic spirits of ammonia down the
patient's throat. But nothing followed to indicate that the liquid
had stimulated the heart.
"You see?" Ruth said.
The manager conceded that he saw, that his original diagnosis was
at fault. Superimposed was the agitating thought of what would
follow the death of this unwelcome guest: confusion, poking
authorities, British and American red tape. It would send business
elsewhere; and the hotel business in Canton was never so prosperous
that one could afford to lose a single guest. Clientèle was of the
most transitory character.
And then, there would be the question of money. Would there be
enough in the young man's envelope to pay the doctor and the hotel
bill--and in the event of his death, enough to ship the body home?
So all things pointed to the happy circumstance of setting this
young fool upon his feet again, of seeing him hence upon his
journey. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
An hour later the doctor arrived; and after a thorough examination,
he looked doubtful.
"He is dying?" whispered Ruth.
"Well, without immediate care he would have passed out. He's on the
ragged edge. It depends upon what he was before he began this
racket. Drink, and no sustaining food. But while there's life
there's hope. There isn't a nurse this side of Hong-Kong to be had.
I've only a Chinaman who is studying under me; but he's a good
sport and will help us out during the crisis. This chap's recovery
all depends upon the care he receives."
Out of nowhere Ruth heard her voice saying: "I will see to that."
"Your husband?"
"No. I do not even know his name."
The doctor sent her a sharp, quizzical glance. He could not quite
make her out; a new type.
"Taber," said the manager; "Taber is the name."
For some reason she did not then understand, Ruth did not offer the
information that Taber had another name.
"This is very fine of you, Miss...."
"Enschede."
"Ah. Well, come back in half an hour. I'll send for Wu Fang. He
speaks English. Not a job he may care about; but he's a good sport.
The hard work will be his, until we yank this young fellow back
from the brink. Run along now; but return in half an hour."
The doctor was in the middle fifties, gray and careworn, but with
alert blue eyes and a gentle mouth. He smiled at Ruth as she turned
away from the bed, smiled with both his mouth and eyes; and she
knew that here would be a man of heart as well as of science. She
went out into the hall, where she met the Jedsons in their kimonos.
"What has happened?" asked Sister Prudence. "We've heard coming and
going."
"Mr. Taber is very ill."
"Oh." Prudence shrugged. "Well, what can you expect, guzzling
poison like that? Are you returning with us to Hong-Kong in the
morning?"
"No. I am going to help take care of him," said Ruth, quite
ordinarily, as though taking care of unknown derelicts was an
ordinary event in her life.
"What?--help take care of him? Why, you can't do that, Miss
Enschede!" was the protest.
"Why can't I?"
"You will be compromised. It isn't as if he were stricken with
typhoid or pneumonia or something like that. You will certainly be
compromised."
"Compromised." Ruth repeated the word, not in the effect of a
query, but ruminantly. "Mutual concessions," she added. "I don't
quite understand the application."
Sister Prudence looked at Sister Angelina, who understood what was
expected of her. Sister Angelina shook her head as if to say that
such ignorance was beyond her.
"Why, it means that people will think evilly of you."
"For a bit of kindness?" Ruth was plainly bewildered.
"You poor child!" Prudence took Ruth's hands in her own. "I never
saw the like of you! One has to guard one's actions constantly in
this wicked world, if one is a woman, young and pretty. A woman
such as I am might help take care of Mr. Taber and no one comment
upon it. But you couldn't. Never in this world! Let the hotel
people take care of him; it's their affair. They sold him the
whisky. Come along with us in the morning. Your father...."
Prudence felt the hands stiffen oddly; and again the thought came
to her that perhaps this poor child's father had once been, perhaps
still was, in the same category as this Taber.
"It's a fine idea, my child, but you mustn't do it. Even if he were
an old friend, you couldn't afford to do it. But a total stranger,
a man you never saw twenty-four hours ago! It can't be thought of.
It isn't your duty."
"I feel bewildered," said Ruth. "Is it wrong, then, to surrender to
good impulses?"
"In the present instance, yes. Can't I make you understand? Perhaps
it sounds cruel to you; but we women often have to be cruel
defensively. You don't want people to snub you later. This isn't
your island, child; it's the great world."
"So I perceive," said Ruth, withdrawing her hands. "He is all
alone. Without care he will die."
"But, goodness me, the hotel will take care of him! Why not? They
sold him the poison. Besides, I have my doubts that he is so very
sick. Probably he will come around to-morrow and begin all over
again. You're alone, too, child. I'm trying to make you see the
worldly point of view, which always inclines toward the evil side
of things."
"I have promised. After all, why should I care what strangers
think?" Ruth asked with sudden heat. "Is there no charity? Isn't it
understood?"
"Of course it is! In the present instance I can offer it and you
can't, or shouldn't. There are unwritten laws governing human
conduct. Who invented them? Nobody knows. But woe to those who
disregard them! Of course, basically it is all wrong; and sometimes
God must laugh at our ideas of rectitude. But to live at peace with
your neighbour...."
Ruth brushed her eyes with one hand and with the other signed for
the spinster to stop. "No more, please! I am bewildered enough. I
understand nothing of what you say. I only know that it is right to
do what I do."
"Well," said Sister Prudence, "remember, I tried to save you some
future heartaches. God bless you, anyhow!" she added, with a
spontaneity which surprised Sister Angelina into uttering an
individual gasp. "Good-bye!"
For a moment Ruth was tempted to fling herself against the withered
bosom; but long since she had learned repression. She remained
stonily in the middle of the hallway until the spinsters' door shut
them from view ... for ever.
[Illustration: _Distinctive Pictures Corporation. The Ragged Edge._
A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]