She hadn't heard from the mother in two months, but there would be mail at
Hong-Kong. Letters and papers from home! Soon she would be in the sitting
room recounting her experiences; and the little mother would listen
politely, even doubtfully, but very glad to have her back. How odd it was!
In the mother the spirit of adventure never reached beyond the garden
gate, while in the daughter it had always been keen for the far places.
And in her first adventure beyond the gate, how outrageously she had been
cheated! She had stepped out of drab and dreary routine only to enter a
drabber and drearier one.
What a dear boy this American officer was! He seemed to have been
everywhere, up and down the world. He had hunted the white orchid of
Borneo; he had gone pearl hunting in the South Seas; and he knew Monte
Carlo, London, Paris, Naples, Cairo. But he never spoke of home. She had
cleverly led up to it many times in the past month, but always he had
unembarrassedly switched the conversation into another channel.
This puzzled her deeply. From the other Americans she never heard of
anything but home, and they were all mad to get there. Yet Captain
Dennison maintained absolute silence on that topic. Clean shaven, bronzed,
tall, and solidly built, clear-eyed, not exactly handsome but
engaging--what lay back of the man's peculiar reticence? Being a daughter
of Eve, the mystery intrigued her profoundly.
Had he been a professional sailor prior to the war? It seemed to her if
that had been the case he would have enlisted in the Navy. He talked like
a man who had spent many years on the water; but in labour or in pleasure,
he made it most difficult for her to tell. Of his people, of his past, not
Bluebeard's closet was more firmly shut. Still with a little smile she
recalled that eventually a woman had opened that closet door, and hadn't
had her head cut off, either.
He was poor like herself. That much was established. For he had said
frankly that when he received his discharge from the Army he would have to
dig up a job to get a meal ticket.
Dear, dear! Would she ever see a continuous stretch of sunshine again? How
this rain tore into things! Shanghai! Wouldn't it be fun to have a
thousand dollars to fling away on the shops? She wanted jade beads,
silks--not the quality the Chinese made for export, but that heavy, shiver
stuff that was as strong and shielding as wool--ivory carvings, little
bronze Buddhas with prayer scrolls inside of them, embroidered jackets.
But why go on? She had less than a hundred, and she would have to carry
home gimcracks instead of curios.