The doctor shifted his books and magazines to the crook of his
elbow. He had done this a dozen times on the way from his office.
Books were always sliding and slipping, clumsy objects to hold.
Looking at this girl, a sense of failure swept over him. He had not
been successful as the world counted success; the fat bank-account,
the filled waiting room of which he had once dreamed, had never
materialized except in the smoke of his evening pipe.
And yet he knew that his skill was equal to that of any fashionable
practitioner in Hong-Kong. He wasn't quite hard enough to win
worldly success; that was his fault. Anybody in pain had only to
call to him. So, here he was, on the last lap of middle age, in
China, having missed all the thrills in life except one--the war
against Death. It rather astonished him. He hadn't followed this
angle of thought in ten years: what he might have been, with a
little shrewd selfishness. This extraordinary child had opened up
an old channel through which it was no longer safe to cruise. She
was like an angel with one wing. The simile started a laugh in his
throat.
"Why do you laugh?" she asked gravely.
"At a thought. Of you--an angel with one wing."
"Meaning that I don't belong anywhere, in heaven or on earth?"
"Meaning that you must cut off the wing or grow another to mate it.
Let's go up and see how the patient is doing. Wu may have news for
us. We'll get those books into your room first. And I'll have
supper with you."
"If only...." But she did not complete the thought aloud. If only
this man had been her father! The world would have meant nothing;
the island would have been wide enough.
"You were saying--?"
"I started to say something; that is all."
"By the way, did you read those stories?"
"Yes."
"Worth anything?"
"I don't know."
"Silly love stories?"
"No; love wasn't the theme. Supposing you take them and read them?
You might be able to tell me why I felt disappointed."
"All right. I'll take them back with me. Probably he has something
to say and can't say it, or he writes well about nothing."
"Do you believe his failure caused...."
"What?" he barked. But he did not follow on with the thought. There
was no need of sowing suspicion when he wasn't really certain there
were grounds for it. "Well, you never can tell," he continued,
lamely. "These writer chaps are queer birds."
"Queer birds."
He laughed and followed her into the hotel. "More slang," he said.
"I'll have to set you right on that, too."
"I have heard sailors use words like that, but I never knew what
they meant."
Sailors, he thought; and most of them the dregs of the South Seas,
casting their evil glances at this exquisite creature and trying to
smirch with innuendo the crystal clearness of her mind. Perhaps
there were experiences she would never confide to any man. Sudden
indignation boiled up in him. The father was a madman. It did not
matter that he wore the cloth; something was wrong with him. He
hadn't played fair.
"Remember; we must keep the young fellow's thoughts away from
himself. Tell him about the island, the coconut dance, the wooden
tom-toms; read to him."
"What made him buy that sing-song girl?" Regarding this, Ruth had
ideas of her own, but she wanted the doctor's point of view.
"Maybe he realized that he was slipping fast and thought a fine
action might give him a hand-hold on life again. You tell me he
didn't like the stuff."
"He shuddered when he drank."
"Well, that's a hopeful sign. I'll test him out later; see if there
is any craving. Give me the books. I'll put them in your room; then
we'll have a look-see."
The patient was asleep. According to Wu, the young man had not
opened his eyes once during the afternoon.
So Ruth returned to her room and sorted the books and magazines the
doctor had loaned her, inspected the titles and searched for
pictures. And thus it was that she came upon a book of Stevenson's
verse--her first adventure into poetry. The hymnal lyrics had never
stirred her; she had memorized and sung them parrot-wise. But here
was new music, tender and kindly and whimsical, that first roved to
and fro in the mind and then cuddled up in the heart. Anything that
had love in it!
The doctor comprehended that he also had his work cut out. While
the girl kept the patient from dwelling upon his misfortunes,
whatever these were, he himself would have to keep the girl from
brooding over hers. So he made merry at the dinner table, told
comic stories, and was astonished at the readiness with which she
grasped the comic side of life. His curiosity put itself into a
question.
"Old Morgan the trader," she explained, "used to save me _Tit-Bits_.
He would read the jokes and illustrate them; and after a
time I could see the point of a joke without having it explained to
me. I believe it amused him. I was a novelty. He was always in a
state of semi-intoxication, but he was always gentle with me.
Probably he taught me what a joke was merely to irritate my father;
for suddenly Father stopped my going to the store for things and
sent our old Kanaka cook instead. She had been to San Francisco,
and what I learned about the world was from her. Thank you for the
books."
"You were born on the island?"
"I believe so."
"You don't remember your mother?"
"Oh, no; she died when I was very little."
She showed him the locket; and he studied the face. It was equally
as beautiful but not quite so fine as the daughter's. He returned
the locket without comment.
"Perhaps things would have been different if she had lived."
"No doubt," he replied. "Mine died while I was over here. Perhaps
that is why I lost my ambition."
"I am sorry."
"It is life."
There was a pause. "He never let me keep a dog or a cat about the
house. But after a time I learned the ways of the parrakeets, and
they would come down to me like doves in the stories. I never made
any effort to touch them; so by and by they learned to light
fearlessly on my arms and shoulders. And what a noise they made!
This is how I used to call them."
She pursed her lips and uttered a whistle, piercingly shrill and
high; and instantly she became the object of intense astonishment
on the part of the other diners. She was quite oblivious to the
sensation she had created.
The picture of her flashed across the doctor's vision magically.
The emerald wings, slashed with scarlet and yellow, wheeling and
swooping about her head, there among the wild plantain.
"I never told anybody," she went on. "An audience might have
frightened the birds. Only in the sunshine; they would not answer
my whistle on cloudy days."
"Didn't the natives have a name for you?"
She blushed. "It was silly."
"Go on, tell me," he urged, enchanted. Never was there another girl
like this one. He blushed, too, spiritually, as it were. He had
invited himself to dine with her merely to watch her table manners.
They were exquisite. Knowing the South Seas from hearsay and by
travel, he knew something of that inertia which blunted the
fineness, innate and acquired, of white men and women, the eternal
warfare against indifference and slovenliness. Only the strong
survived. This queer father of hers had given her everything but
his arms. "Tell me, what did they call you?"
"Well, the old Kanaka cook used to call me the Golden One, but the
natives called me the Dawn Pearl."
"The Dawn Pearl! Odd, but we white folks aren't half so poetical as
the yellow or the black. What did you do when your father went on
trips to other islands?"
"Took off my shoes and stockings and played in the lagoon."
"He made you wear shoes and stockings?"
"Always."
"What else did you do when alone?"
"I read the encyclopaedia. That is how I learned that there were
such things as novels. Books! Aren't they wonderful?"
The blind alley of life stretching out before her, with its secret
doorways and hidden menaces; and she was unconcerned. Books; an
inexplicable hunger to be satisfied. Somewhere in the world there
was a book clerk with a discerning mind; for he had given her the
best he had. He envied her a little. To fall upon those tales for
the first time, when the mind was fresh and the heart was young!
He became aware of an odd phase to this conversation. The
continuity was frequently broken in upon by diversory suppositions.
Take the one that struck him at this moment. Supposing that was it;
at least, a solution to part of this amazing riddle? Supposing her
father had made her assist him in the care of the derelicts solely
to fill her with loathing and abhorrence for mankind?
"Didn't you despise the men your father brought home--the
beachcombers?"
"No. In the beginning was afraid; but after the first several
cases, I had only pity. I somehow understood."
"Didn't some of them ... try to touch you?"
"Not the true unfortunates. How men suffer for the foolish things
they do!"
"Ay to that. There's our young friend upstairs."
"There's a funny idea in my head. I've been thinking about it ever
since morning. There was a loose button on that coat, and I want to
sew it on. It keeps dangling in front of my eyes."
"Ah, yes; that coat. Probably a sick man's whim. Certainly, there
wasn't a thing in the pockets. But be very careful not to let him
know. If he awoke and caught you at it, there might be a set-back.
By the way, what did he say when he was out of his head?"
"The word 'Fool.' He muttered it continually. There was another
phrase which sounded something like 'Gin in a blue-serge coat'. I
wonder what he meant by that?"
"The Lord knows!"
The patient was restless during the first watch of the night. He
stirred continually, thrusting his legs about and flinging his arms
above his head. Gently each time Ruth drew down the arms. There was
a recurrence of fever, but nothing alarming. Once she heard him
mutter, and she leaned down.
"Ali Baba, in a blue-serge coat!... God-forsaken fool!"