MA CHIT
Although Shafto had many acquaintances and continual engagements, he
never forgot his first friends, the Salters, and still strolled over of
an evening, accompanied by Roscoe, to sit in the veranda, talk, smoke,
and listen, until his companions began to discuss such abstract
questions as, “What is the real driving force of life?” or to argue on
the philosophy of Buddhism, or Herbert Spencer’s “Descriptive
Sociology” and the “Unknowable.”
When conversation turned in this direction Shafto felt entirely out of
his element and slipped indoors to play games with Rosetta or her
mother. Recently it had struck him that Ma Chit appeared to have become
more or less a permanent member of the establishment, being so
constantly with her cousin. She took an enthusiastic interest in
Rosetta’s brick-building, superintended and sharply criticised Mee
Lay’s games of dominoes, and even suggested herself as a substitute.
Burmese dominoes are black, with brass points, and held in the hand
like cards. Mrs. Slater, a keen and clever opponent, indignantly
refused to relinquish her post to her relative, and was radiant and
triumphant when she carried off a stake of eight annas. Shafto would
have enjoyed these matches, and this contest of wits and luck, had Ma
Chit been elsewhere, instead of leaning on his chair, looking over his
hand, laughing, throwing quick glances, and making idiotic remarks.
Once he had been not a little startled to find her tiny brown fingers
inserted between his collar and his neck! He shook them off
impatiently; he hated such practical jokes, and said so in no measured
terms.
More than once, he had been solemnly assured, the fascination of this
girl’s personality worked like a charm, and it had become disagreeably
evident that she wished to cast a spell over _him_. How often had her
bright black eyes imparted an alluring tale! However, he felt himself
well protected by an impenetrable shield on which was inscribed the
name of “Sophy,” and Ma Chit gracefully posturing with tingling bangles
and twittering talk, had no more effect upon her prey than on a stone
image. No; although she hung over him, tapped him with too eloquent
fingers, whispered jokes in his ear, and filled his nostrils with an
exquisite and voluptuous perfume, she was powerless!
One evening he happened to be playing chess with Salter; Roscoe was at
_pwe_; Mee Lay was putting Rosetta to bed, but Ma Chit was present,
listening, smiling, and smoking her white cheroot. At the conclusion of
a close and hard-fought game, in which Shafto was victorious she leant
over, gazed into his eyes, and stroked his face with two caressing
fingers. As he drew back quickly, she burst out laughing and exclaimed:
“But why are you so shy, dear boy? Always so shy—so odd and so
foolish?”
Shafto found the siren undeniably pretty and seductive, but at the same
time irrepressible and odious. He hated her catlike litheness, her
undulating walk, and the unmistakable invitation of her whole
personality.
“Come, Ma Chit, behave yourself!” said her host sternly. “If you
can’t—you don’t come here again.”
The beauty received this admonition with a scream of laughter, tossed a
flower at Salter, wafted a kiss to his guest, and faded away into the
veranda.
By degrees, thanks to his constant encounters with Ma Chit, Shafto
avoided the Salters’ bungalow, and Roscoe made his visits alone; but as
it was not more than three hundred yards from the chummery Shafto had a
painful conviction that, when dusk and darkness had fallen, the
neighbourhood of his compound was haunted—not by the malignant and
resident _nat_, but by the graceful and sinuous figure of a little
Burmese girl! Once a stone, to which was attached a paper, was thrown
into his room. On it was inscribed in a babu’s clerkly hand:
“Do come and talk to Ma Chit.”