One of the voices--that of a man--grew a little louder; but I was too
far off, there on the stairs, to catch what he was saying. Then rather
abruptly, the door swung open and the man backed out. He was the manager
of the hotel.
At the same instant Sir Robert, with agility surprising in one of his
age, darted into his own room and swiftly, but softly, swung the door
nearly to behind him. The manager was too intent on his own words and
thoughts to know of this.
I could not think what to do. The one thing I was sure of was that I did
not want to speak to the manager, coming, as he was, directly from
her room. So I ran down the stairs, and was in the lounge looking at a
magazine when he appeared on the ground floor.
I waited a few moments longer, then went up again. I simply had to know
what Sir Robert was about. And again I stopped when my head rose just
above the top step.
Sure enough, there he was--that old man!--crouching by her door and
tapping softly at it with his shaking fingers. I felt a slow, cold sort
of dread creep across my mind and my nerves. I did not move.
He tapped and tapped--oh, so softly! He stooped to the keyhole and
whispered. I could not hear him, but I could see it all in pantomime.
He gave this up; and stood thinking. He slipped into his own room and
switched on the light, but did not close the door. In a very short time
he reappeared with a white paper in his hand--an envelope, doubtless.
And for the second time I had to watch this monstrous old man get down
on his shaking knees and with a pencil thrust his evil communication in
under her door.
This done, he got to his feet (I could hear his heavy breathing),
lingered only a moment, then returned to his room, leaving his door
ajar.
I came on up the stairs then, walking as heavily as possible, and let
myself into my own room here.
I kept silent for quite a time until I heard Sir Robert's door shut.
Then I tapped on Heloise's door. Again and again I tapped there, but she
would not reply. She is avoiding me, and that is disturbing. Her light
went out soon after that.
On looking back, I see that I have spoken of her as sleeping. Since then
I have thought, on two occasions, that I have heard her tiptoeing about
her room; but for the most part it has been unusually still there.
I have wondered if she is out on her balcony; but I dare not look. I
shrink from it. For she is avoiding me. She would not answer my tapping
on her door--the light, nervous tapping that she knows so well. And
one thought stands out in all the dreadful, turbulent confusion of this
hour. It is that I must not try to see her if she does not wish to see
me.
It is just two o'clock.
I shall not sleep. I shall not even undress. This is not wise of me, I
suppose. But it is the way I feel. And I am a creature of feeling now.
It would help to pass these dreadful hours if I could go on writing--or
if I could read. But she will know it if I do not put out my light.
Perhaps she would worry.
So I shall sit here in the dark. Or walk to the window and look out at
the sleeping city--at this rich old capital of a peaceful people, who
smile languidly at the turbulent West from which I spring (like Crocker
and his sorry kind)--who turn from the miseries of actual life to the
philosophy of their ancient seers.
Though, come to think of it, I am wrong here. Even gentle, contemplative
old China has been drawn from her slumber of the ages into the whirlpool
of modern life. I was thinking of the past. I had forgotten. They are
carving out a republic here now. Their hands are stained with blood. And
the sometimes violent bankers of the Western world sit coldly over them
while they struggle.
There is no peace. There is no clear thought. There is only life. Only
life.
_April 14th._
|ALL the rest of that night of the 12th-13th I sat in my dark room, or
softly walked the floor, or gazed out at the sleeping city fit un my
one window. And all night I was conscious of unusual and increasingly
violent nervous reactions. Turning the pages back, I note that I
attempted the other day to write a definition of love. This was absurd.
I do not know what love is. Nobody knows. It is a capricious and wild
thing. It flashes like the lightning, and rushes like the wind. It
grows by feeding on itself. It exalts. It devastates. It contains within
itself all the latent possibilities of nobility and service, of lust
and jealousy, of tenderness, of sacrifice, of murder. It is a blind,
insistent force; yet it shines before the mind's eye like dewdrops on
the gossamer wings of fairies.
When morning finally came, I stood there at my window and watched the
sun climb slowly over the Legation walls. It was a flat red sun, hung
behind a film of dusty air.
I wondered how long it would be before I should tap on Heloise's door.
Not long. I feared. All night I had been waiting; all night I had been
withholding my hand.
I heard her get up, and stir about her room. I wondered if she had
slept. Perhaps, for she still did not know what I knew.
For a long, long time I waited.
Finally, at seven o'clock. I tiptoed across the creaking floor. I stood
there by the door. I raised my hand, then dropped it. My throat became
suddenly dry.
At length I tapped.
She had been stirring there, on the other side of the door. Now, at the
sound, she was still.