The Ragged Edge Page 5

  CHAPTER V

  At dinner the spinsters invited Ruth to sit at their table, aninvitation she accepted gratefully. She was not afraid exactly, butthere was that about her loneliness to-night she distrusted.Detached, it was not impossible that she would be forced to leavethe dining room because of invading tears. To be near someone, evensomeone who made a pretense of friendliness, to hear voices, herown intermingling, would serve as a rehabilitating tonic. The worldhad grown dark and wide, and she was very small. Doubts began torise up all about her, plucking at her confidence. Could she gothrough with it? She must. She would never, never go back.

  As usual the substantive sister--Prudence--did all the talking forthe pair; Angelina, the shadow, offered only her submitting nods.Sometimes she missed her cue and nodded affirmatively when thegesture should have been the reverse; and Prudence would send her asharp glance of disapproval. Angelina's distress over thesemischances was pathetic.

  None of this by-play escaped Ruth, whose sense of humour needed nodeveloping. That she possessed any sense of humour was in itselfone of those human miracles which metaphysicians are alwayspothering over without arriving anywhere; for her previousenvironment had been particularly humourless. But if she smiled atall it was with her eyes. To-night she could have hugged both theold maids.

  "Somebody ought to get hold of that young man," said Prudence,grimly, as she nodded in Spurlock's direction. "Look at him!"

  Ruth looked. He was draining a glass, and as he set it down heshuddered. A siphon and a whisky bottle stood before him. Hemeasured out the portion of another peg, the bottle wavering in hishand. His food lay untouched about his plate. There was no disgustin Ruth's heart, only an infinite pity; for only the pitifulunderstand.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "I have no sympathy," replied Prudence, "with a man whodeliberately fuddles himself with strong drink."

  "You would, if you had seen what I have. Men in this part of theworld drink to forget the things they have lost."

  "And what should a young man like this one have to forget?"Prudence demanded to know.

  "I wonder," said Ruth. "Couldn't you speak to him?"

  "What?--and be insulted for my trouble? No, thank you!"

  "That is it. You complain of a condition, but you leave thecorrection to someone else."

  The spinster had no retort to offer such directness. This child wasfrequently disconcerting. Prudence attacked her chicken wing.

  "If I spoke to him, my interest might be misinterpreted."

  "Where did you go to school?" Prudence asked, seeking a newchannel, for the old one appeared to be full of hidden reefs.

  "I never went to school."

  "But you are educated!"--astonished.

  "That depends upon what you call educated. Still, my tutor was ahighly educated scholar--my father." Neither spinster noticed thereluctance in the tones.

  "Ah! I see. He suddenly realized that he could not keep you forever in this part of the world; so he sends you to your aunt. Thatdress! Only a man--and an unworldly one--would have permitted youto proceed on your adventure dressed in a gown thirty years out ofdate. What is your father's business?"

  The question was an impertinence, but Ruth was not aware of that.

  "Souls," she answered, drily.

  "A missioner! That illuminates everything." The spinster's faceactually became warm. "You will finish your education in the Eastand return. I see."

  "No. I shall never come back."

  Something in the child's voice, something in her manner, warned thespinster that her well-meaning inquisitiveness had received aset-back and that it would be dangerous to press it forward again.What she had termed illuminative now appeared to be only anotherphase of the mystery which enveloped the child. A sinister thoughtedged in. Who could say that the girl's father had not once been afashionable clergyman in the States and that drink had got him andforced him down, step by step, until--to use the child's oddexpression--he had come upon the beach? She was cynical, thisspinster. There was no such a thing as perfection in a mixed world.Clergymen were human. Still, it was rather terrible to suspect thatone had fallen from grace, but nevertheless the thing was possible.With the last glimmer of decency he had sent the daughter to hissister. The poor child! What frightful things she must have seen onthat island of hers!

  The noise of crashing glass caused a diversion; and Ruth turnedgratefully toward the sound.

  The young man had knocked over the siphon. He rose, steadiedhimself, then walked out of the dining room. Except for the dulleyes and the extreme pallor of his face, there was nothing else toindicate that he was deep in liquor. He did not stagger in theleast. And in this fact lay his danger. The man who staggers, whoseface is flushed, whose attitude is either noisily friendly ortruculent, has some chance; liquor bends him eventually. But men ofthe Spurlock type, who walk straight, who are unobtrusive andintensely pale, they break swiftly and inexplicably. They seldomarrive on the beach. There are way-stations--even terminals.

  There was still the pity of understanding in Ruth's eyes. Perhapsit was loneliness. Perhaps he had lost his loved ones and waswandering over the world seeking forgetfulness. But he would die ifhe continued in this course. They were alike in one phase--lovelessand lonely. If he died, here in this hotel, who would care? Or ifshe died, who would care?

  A queer desire blossomed in her heart: to go to him, urge him tosee the folly of trying to forget. Of what use was the temporaryset-back to memory, when it always returned with redoubledpoignancy?

  Then came another thought, astonishing. This was the first youngman who had drawn from her something more than speculativeinterest. True, on board the ships she had watched young men fromafar, but only with that normal curiosity which is aroused in thepresence of any new species. But after Singapore she found herselfenduing them with the characteristics of the heroes in the novelsshe had just read for the first time. This one was Henry Esmond,that one the melancholy Marius, and so forth and so on; never anyvillains. It wasn't worth while to invest imaginatively a man withevil projects simply because he was physically ugly.

  Some day she wanted to be loved as Marius loved Cosette; but therewas another character which bit far more deeply into her mind. Why?Because she knew him in life, because, so long as she couldremember, he had crossed and recrossed her vision--Sidney Carton.The wastrel, the ne'er-do-well, who went mostly nobly to a fineend.

  Here, then, but for the time and place, might be another SidneyCarton. Given the proper incentive, who could say that he might notlikewise go nobly to some fine end? She thrilled. To find theincentive! But how? Thither and yon the idea roved, seeking theway. But always this new phase in life which civilization calledconvention threw up barrier after barrier.

  She could not go to him with a preachment against strong drink; sheknew from experience that such a plan would be wasted effort. Hadshe not seen them go forth with tracts in their pockets and grinsin their beards? To set fire to his imagination, to sting his senseof chivalry into being, to awaken his manhood, she must presentsome irresistible project. She recalled that day of the typhoon andthe sloop crashing on the outer reefs. The heroism of two beachcombers had saved all on board and their own manhood as well.

  "Are you returning to Hong-Kong to-morrow by the day boat?"

  For a moment Ruth was astonished at the sound of the spinster'svoice. She had, by the magic of recollection, set the picture ofthe typhoon between herself and her table companions: the terriblerollers thundering on the white shore, the deafening bellow of thewind, the bending and snapping palms, the thatches of the nativehuts scattering inland, the blur of sand dust, and those twooutcasts defying the elements.

  "I don't know," she answered vaguely.

  "But there's nothing more to see in Canton."

  "Perhaps I'm too tired to plan for to-morrow. Those awful chairs!"

  After dinner the spinsters proceeded to inscribe their accustomedquota of postcards, and Ruth was left to herself. She walkedthrough the offi
ce to the door, aimlessly.

  Beyond the steps was a pole-chair in readiness. One of the cooliesheld the paper lantern. Near by stood Ah Cum and the young unknown,the former protesting gently, the latter insistent upon hisdemands.

  "I repeat," said Ah Cum, "that the venture is not propitious.Canton is all China at night. If we were set upon I could notdefend you. But I can easily bring in a sing-song girl to play foryou."

  "No. I want to make my own selection."

  "Very well, sir. But if you have considerable money, you had betterleave it in the office safe. You can pay me when we return. Thesing-song girls in Hong-Kong are far handsomer. That is a part ofthe show in Hong-Kong. But here it is China."

  "If you will not take me, I'll find some guide who will."

  "I will take you. I simply warn you."

  Spurlock entered the office, passed Ruth without observing her (orif he did observe her, failed to recognize her), and deposited hisfunds with the manager.

  "I advise you against this trip, Mr. Taber," said the manager."Affairs are not normal in Canton at present. Only a few weeks agothere was a bloody battle on the bridge there between the soldieryand the local police. Look at these walls."

  The walls were covered with racks of loaded rifles. In thoserevolutionary times one had to be prepared. Some Chinaman mighttake it into his head to shout: "Death to the foreign devils!" Andout of that wall yonder would boil battle and murder and suddendeath. A white man, wandering about the streets of Canton at night,was a challenge to such a catastrophe.

  Taber. Ruth stared thoughtfully at the waiting coolies. That didnot sound like the name the young man had offered in the tower ofthe water-clock. She remained by the door until the walls of thecity swallowed the bobbing lantern. Then she went into the office.

  "What is a sing-song girl?" she asked.

  The manager twisted his moustache. "The same as a Japanese geishagirl."

  "And what is a geisha girl?"

  Not to have heard of the geisha! It was as if she had asked: "Whatis Paris?" What manner of tourist was this who had heard neither ofthe geisha of Japan nor of the sing-song girl of China? Before hecould marshal the necessary phrases to explain, Ruth herselfindicated her thought.

  "A bad girl?" She put the question as she would have put anyquestion--level-eyed and level-toned.

  After a series of mental gymnastics--occupying the space of a fewseconds--it came to him with a shock that here was a new specimenof the species. At the same time he comprehended that she was aspure and lovely as the white orchid of Borneo and that she did notcarry that ridiculous shield called false modesty. He could talk toher as frankly as he could to a man, that she would not takeoffence at anything so long as it was in the form of explanation.On the other hand, there was a subconscious impression that shewould be able to read instantly anything unclean in a man's eye.All her questions would have as a background the idea of futuredefence.

  "The geisha and the sing-song girl are professional entertainers.They are not bad girls, but the average tourist has thatmisconception of them. If some of them are bad in the sense youmean, it is because there are bad folks in all walks of life. Theysell only their talents, not their bodies; they are not girls ofthe street."

  The phrase was new, but Ruth nodded understandingly.

  "Still," went on the manager, "they are slaves in a sense; they arebought and sold until their original indebtedness is paid. A fatheris in debt, we'll say. He sells his daughter to a geisha or asing-song master, and the girl is rented out until the debt is paid.Then the work is optional; they go on their own. There are sing-songgirls in Hong-Kong and Shanghai who are famous and wealthy.Sometimes they marry well. If they become bad it is throughinclination, not necessity."

  Again Ruth nodded.

  "To go a little further. Morality is a point of view. It is anOccidental point of view. The Oriental has no equivalent. What youwould look upon as immorality is here merely an established custom,three thousand years older than Christianity, accepted with no moreado than that which would accompany you should you become a clerkin a shop."

  "That is what I wanted to know," said Ruth gravely. "The poorthings!"

  The manager laughed. "Your sympathy is being wasted. They are theonly happy women in the Orient."

  "Do you suppose he knew?"

  "He? Oh, you mean Mr. Taber?" He wondered if this crystal being wasinterested in that blundering fool who had gone recklessly into thecity. "I don't know what his idea was."

  "Will there be any danger?"

  "To Mr. Taber? There is a possibility. Canton at night is as muchChina as the border town of Lan-Chow-fu. A white man takes his lifein his hands. But Ah Cum is widely known for his luck. Besides," headded cynically, "it is said that God watches over fools anddrunken men."

  This expression was old in Ruth's ears. She had heard the traderutter it many times.

  "Thank you," she said, and left the office.

  The manager stared at the empty doorway for a space, shrugged, andreturned to his ledgers. The uncanny directness of those gray eyes,the absence of diffidence, the beauty of the face in profile (full,it seemed a little too broad to make for perfect beauty), themellow voice that came full and free, without hesitance, allcombined to mark her as the most unusual young woman he had evermet. He was certain that those lips of hers had never known thenatural and pardonable simper of youth.

  Was she interested in that young ass who was risking his bones overthere in the city? They had come up on the same boat. Still, onenever could tell. The young fellow was almost as odd in his way asthe girl was in hers. He seldom spoke, and drank with a persistencethat was sinister. He was never drunk in the accepted meaning ofthe word; rather he walked in a kind of stupefaction. Supposing AhCum's luck failed for once?

  The manager made a gesture of dismissal, and added up the bill forthe Misses Jedson, who were returning to Hong-Kong in the morning.