In Red and Gold

“I’m afraid they could. It would be an outrageous act, but the government now, I’m sorry to say, is in outrageous hands. If the empress is determined, as apparently she is, there are ways enough of getting at all his possessions. Even through the banks.” His heart was full, his voice tender; but he could not deceive her. He added a question: “Does his excellency, your father, know all this?”

She nodded. “I have tol’ him. But I can no’ make him see it like me. Oh, we are so differen’. I am, you see, an American girl. I am free here,” she laid a pretty hand on her breast. “When I try to think of all these dreadful things – of these wicked eunuchs an’ the empress who is like thousan’ of years ago – blin’, childish! – an’ the people who can no’ yet see it differen’ – I get bewilder’. You un’erstan’. You are an American, too. I can speak with you. That is well, because there isn’ anybody else I can speak with. An’ my father admires you. If you will only speak with him – if you will only help me make him think differen’!”

Doane wondered what he could do, what she imagined he could do, without influence or money. He quite forgot, in this matter of influence alone, the significance of the viceroy’s courtesy, as of Sun Shi-pi’s appeal to him. For a little too long he had been a beaten man. It was becoming dangerously near a habit so to consider himself. And now, to make active dear thinking impossible, emotion flooded his brain. Gently he asked her what she would have him do.

“My father will no’ listen when I speak, He is ver’ kind, ver’ generous. He has made me an American girl. That is one of the things they say is wrong. Even for tha’ they attack his good name. But when I ask Him no’ to do this, no’ to die so wrongly, he speaks to me like an ol’ Manchu of long ago.”

“He is between the worlds,” mused Doane, aloud.

“Yes, it is that. An’ I, perhaps, am between the worl’s.”

“And I.”

“But he mus’ no’ do it! It is so simple! The throne will no’ live. Not one year more. I know that. They are fighting now at Wu Chang.”

Doane inclined his head. “I know that, Miss Hui, but the revolution has not yet gone so far that success is sure.”

“But it is sure. The people will everywhere rise. I know it – here!”

“That is my hope, too. But to stir this great land means so much in effort and education. You have changed, yes. Your father has changed. Sun Yat Sen was educated in a medical school and has lived in America and England; he has changed. But all China – I do not want to dash your hopes, dear Miss Hui, but I fear China is not nearly so far along as you and I would wish.”

“Then – even so – mus’ my father die because a wicked empress has no brains? It is no’ right. Listen, please! If you, Mis’er Doane, would jus’ try to persua’ my father! He will listen to you. Oh, if you woul’ stay with us, an’ help us. We coul’ take some money, some jewels, an’ escape down the river – to Shanghai – to Japan, or even America. My father mus’ no’ die like this. There will be a few servan’s we can trus’. You speak to my father, sir, an’ he will listen. I know that. He says you have the mind of the ol’ philosopher – of Lao-tze himself. He said that. An’ you have the Western strength that he admires. An’ he says you un’erstan’ China. Oh, will you speak to him?”

Doane stared out into the luminous night. This response in his breast to her eager youth frightened him now. He had felt of late that life mattered little; certainly not his own. But youth, and hope, and faith – they mattered.

He took her small hand in his own. His heart was beating high. It was going to be hard now, to control his voice. He was, then, after all the years, the struggles, the beatings, incurably romantic…

Stirred yet by the vibrant pulse of youth that in some men and women never dies. He himself had thought this negative spirit of the past few years a philosophy, but apparently, it was nothing of the sort. Or where was it now? Tor he was suddenly all nervously alive, a man of vigor and pride, a man of urgent emotional need…

“I will try,” he said.

She clung to his hand. “I have your promise?”

He bowed. “I must think. I should not like to fail. There will be time. He will” – it was hard to phrase this – “he will wait, surely, until he is at home. But you must not stay longer here. And we must not meet again like this. I will try my best to help you.”

It seemed a pitifully inadequate speech. But the wild impulse was upon him to clasp her lovely person in his arms – claim her, fight for her, live again a man’s life through and for her. It was, he deliberately thought, almost insane in him. A man with nothing to offer, not even the great hope of youth, struggling against an emotion, a hunger, that it was grotesque to indulge. He compressed his lips tightly.

She seemed breathless. For a moment she pressed her hands to her cheeks and eyes; then waved to him and went lightly down the ladder.

CHAPTER V – RESURGENCE

THE upper-deck passengers awoke in the morning to find the engines still at rest, and the now familiar View of Kiu Kiang still to be seen from port-side windows; the Yen Hsin had merely been moved a hundred yards or so below the landing hulk and anchored. There was grumbling about the breakfast table. The captain did not appear. The huge mate was preoccupied; explaining with grave courtesy that he had no further news. He assumed that orders to proceed to Hankow would be forthcoming during the day. It was understood now that the republican troops were everywhere protecting white folk, and, in any event, the foreign concessions up the river were well guarded by the war-ships.

The outstanding fact was that they were to spend at least another night on the river. The sensible thing to do, or so decided the younger men, was to have a dance. Accordingly, before tiffin, committees were hard at work planning decorations for the social hall. Miss Means proved a fertile source of entertaining ideas. And it was agreed, during the day, that Miss Andrews had a pretty taste at hanging flags.

The Chinese day begins with the light. And little Mr. Kato, sitting smilingly through breakfast, had already passed hours among his below-decks acquaintance. After breakfast he sat outside with the Kanes, senior and junior, talking rapidly. There Miss Carmichael observed them; later, when Rocky stood by the rail throwing brass cash down into the crowding, nosing sampans of the water beggars, she strolled his way – looking incredibly young – carrying a book from the boat’s library, a thin finger between the pages as a mark. She smiled at the quarreling beggars below. But he, at sight of her, grew sulky.

“You didn’t come last night,” he said, very low, his voice thick with suddenly rising feeling.

“No, I couldn’t. You can’t always plan things.”

“Well, you said – ”

“Rocky, please! You mustn’t talk like that. We can be seen.”

“Well – ” he closed his lips. It was the first time she had called him by his name. That seemed something. And she was right; they must keep up appearances. He felt that she was extremely clever; living her own life as a business woman, away out here, doing as she chose, like a man, never losing her head for a moment. Well, he would show her that he could be a sport.

“Kato picked up some queer news this morning, prowling around. There’s a mutiny brewing below decks. He hasn’t got all the facts, yet. He’s down there now. It’s the viceroy’s soldiers. First! thing we know they’ll be blowing up the boat.” He was gloomy about it; boyishly tun ing his heavy burden of self-pity and reproach into the new channel.

“Well,” said she, “we’ll all have to take our chances, I suppose,” and moved away a step, pausing and balancing gracefully on the balls of her feet and smiling at him.

“Wait,” he muttered – “don’t go!”

“It’s better. No good in our being seen too much together – ”

“Too much?”

“I’ll save you some dances to-night.”

“A lot! All of them!”

She smiled again at this outburst; said, “We can visit afterward, anyhow,” and moved away.

On the other side of the deck she found the Manila Kid leaning in a doorway, moodily chewing a match. His listless eyes at once sought her wrist.

“You’re not wearing it,” he muttered.

“You know why, Jim.”

“Sure! Young Kane.”

“Oh, Jim, where are your brains? Don’t try to tell me that Tex hasn’t seen that watch… Well, do you want him to know there’s something between us – just now – ”

“I don’t know’s I – ”

Her pale cool eyes swept the deck. Then she leaned beside him; opened her book, then looked out over it at the shipping and the dimpling river beyond; smiled in her easy way. “Jim, why didn’t you tell me that Tex has started this thing without me?”

“I’ve been watching for a chance to.”

She considered this. He went on:

“Look here, Dixie, this is big stuff!”

“Of course.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out how we stand. I didn’t quite get you last night. Tex and his boy Tom have got a bunch of the soldiers now. But they’re moving careful because there’s another show been started. One of the regular revolutionary crowd is below there stirring ‘em up. Some of ‘em are full of this republic idea, want to die for it and all that stuff, and Tex has to move cautious to buy ‘em off. Say, what does he want so many for?”

“The more the better.”

“But how’re you going to pay ‘em?”

“Let them loot.”

“But Tex – and Tom – are promising them part of the real stuff, jewels.”

“Oh, you’d probably have to promise. But when they get into it, with plenty of loot and liquor and women, it’ll be easy enough to get away from them.”

“But how’re you going to keep ‘em in hand before that? Do you know what some of ‘em are whispering around now? They want to carve up the boat. Come right up here and go through the viceroy’s outfit.”

“But he hasn’t much stuff here, Jim. We’ve got bigger game than that.”

“I know – and anyway it’d bring a gunboat down on us. That’s what Tex is trying to make Tom see. Tom’s in Tex’s room now. But my God, Dixie, when I think of what you’ve started in that offhand way o’ yours…”

“Tex’ll hold them down, Jim. That’s one good thing about him, he’s not weak. You’re nervous. Better go in and help the teachers hang flags. That’ll soothe you. You and I mustn’t talk any more either. If there’s any news for me, better send me a chit by a boy.”

The Kid looked mournfully at her. He was a grotesque, this Jim Watson, tall, angular, thin bony face under the tipped-back cap, bald salients running up into his hair on either side the plastered-down front locks. And as he gazed on this wisp of a girl who had slipped mysteriously in among the adroit swindlers and adventuresses of the coast but a few brief years back and had from the very beginning cleverly made her way, his disorganized spirit yearned toward her. She had brains, and used them. She knew how to be nice to a fellow, and the Kid hungered for sympathy. And she was piquantly desirable: in part because men sought her without success. Except perhaps that young naval officer at Hong Kong, the name of no man had been seriously linked with hers; and the fact that he was an eldest son of one of the richest and greatest families in England in a measure removed the incident beyond the confines of normal human experience. No, the Kid could hardly feel that he ought to resent that. He knew, as he so moodily surveyed her, that her sympathy – the word was his own – could be bought only at a high price. The price, indeed, frightened him. He couldn’t think along with Dixie and Tex. Nor could he easily conceive of opposing Tex, for the man was strong and merciless. Still…

“See here, Dixie, if I wasn’t so fool crazy over you, do you think for a minute I’d let you drag me into this kind of a mix-up? Why, my God! – when I got to thinking about it last night – the risks you’re running – ”

“It’s big stakes, Jim. You can’t expect a million to fall into your lap. Got to play for it. Tell me – does this Tom Sung understand English?”

“Of course! He was a farm laborer in California, and a cook in the United States Navy. Why?”

“I may have to talk to him myself before we get through with it.”

“Of course you know Tex means to rob you?”

“Of course,” said she, smiling a little for the benefit of a customs man who appeared up forward. “You run along now, Jim. This is no game for weak nerves. Remember, I need you.”

“Well – just this – ”

“Careful!”

“ – You listen, now! You won’t find me getting-cold feet – ”

“I’m sure of that.”

“And I ain’t afraid o’ Tex Connor, either! If you mean that I’ve got to go up against him – Well, say, look here! If I go through – if I do everything you say – how’re we going to stand, you and me?”

“I let you give me the watch, didn’t I?”

“Well – that’s all right – but I asked you once to go to the Islands with me, and you wouldn’t.”

“Not over there. I know too many people.”

“Well, somewhere else, then! Tell me straight, now! If we pull this off – shake down a real pile – will you go with me?”

She looked thoughtfully at him for a brief moment; then turned again to the river. “You know I’m fond of you, Jim.”

“It’s a trade, Dixie? If I stick to you, you’ll stick to me?”

She considered this; finally, very quietly, barely parting her lips, replied, simply: “Yes.”

He drew in his breath with a whistling sound.

She added, then: “Careful, Jim! I know how you feel, but don’t let yourself talk.”

“I know, Dix, but my God! When I think of how you’ve kept me dancing this year – and now – ”

“I’ll say this, Jim. Just this. If you knew everything about Tex Connor – ”

“You mean, he’s tried to – ”

“I mean certain things he’s said to me. If you’re as fond of me as that you’d understand why I’ve felt, once or twice, like killing him. That man is a devil, Jim.”

Then she slipped away.

Miss Carmichael sat deliberately through tiffin; discreetly quiet, as always; apparently without nerves. The Kid ate rapidly, speaking not a word, seldom looking up from his plate. Tex Connor was calmly wooden, as always, though at intervals Miss Carmichael felt his eye on her as she daintily nibbled her curry.

After tiffin she was stretched comfortably in her deck chair, reading, or seeming to, when Connor appeared, strolling along the deck, hands deep in pockets, chewing the inevitable Manila cigar. He wore a neat cap, and his large person was clothed in an outing suit of gray flannel. On his feet were shoes of whitened leather with rubber soles. To any but a shrewd student of physiognomy he might have passed for a prosperous American business man or politician, of the bluff western sort.

He paused at her careless nod; bent his face around and stared coldly at her. Nothing of the real man showed; even his rough vulgarity was concealed behind the mask and the manner. He ought to have a woman to tell him, she thought, that he was altogether too stout to wear a Norfolk jacket.

“Sit down?” she asked.

He dropped into the chair beside her.

“Looks as if we’d be hung up here till night anyhow,” he said gruffly. “All foolishness, too. It’s safe enough between here and Hankow. The Jardine boat came down this morning. And we land at the concessions – don’t have to go clear up to the city.” He drummed on the chair; shifted his cigar. “I can’t hang around here. Got to get up to Peking before they close off the railroad.”

She listened quietly to this little tirade; then remarked: “Thought over my proposition, Tex?”

“What proposition?.. Oh, that scheme? Sure, I’ve thought it over. Nothing in it, Dix.”

“Why not?”

“Too complicated. Did you ever see a lot of soldiers on the loose – their killing blood up? You could never handle ‘em in the world.”

“Oh, of course,” said she, “if you tried any coarse work. But I wouldn’t pin that on you, Tex.”

“It’s easy to talk.” Connor’s voice rose slightly; he noted the fact himself; paused and spoke with greater deliberation. “But I wouldn’t tackle a gamelike that. It ain’t practical. Anyhow, Dix, I wouldn’t go it blind. I’d have to know where I was going every minute. If you wanted to talk real business, it might be different. I might see a way to start something. But even at that” – he got heavily to his feet…"No, thing for me’s to stick to my own line.”

He was moving slowly away when her slow light voice brought him up short. “Tex,” she said, “I see you’re just a cheap liar, after all.”

Then she watched the color sweep over his face. It was something to stir that wooden countenance with genuine emotion. She even found a perverse thrill in the experience.

He stood motionless for a long moment. Finally he said, none too steadily: “You know what would happen to a man that said that to me.”

“What would you do? Shoot?.. Where would that get you? No, Tex, listen! Sit down here.”

But he stood over her.

“I know everything you’re doing.”

“Oh – you do?”

“You’re crossing me. But you can’t get away with it. You know where you are – in China! And you’re tampering with the troops of the viceroy of Nanking. My God, Tex, haven’t you any brains? Did you really think I’d show my hand?”

He chewed the cigar in silence, staring down.

“I’ll give you your choice,” she went on. “You can work with me. fifty-fifty, or I’ll have Tom Sung beheaded. And then you’ll be out a meal ticket. And all your expenses with Tom up to now. And the three thousand you lost to the Kanes.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! I haven’t even seen Tom Sung in twenty-four hours.”

“That’s another lie. He was in your room this morning.”

“How do you know that? Say, if Jim Watson’s been talking…”

“He hasn’t, Tex. I’ve got my information – and there’s a lot of if – from Kato the Japanese. Go and talk to him, if you like. Or to your friends the Kanes.”

Connor, the color gone from his face now, looked steadily down at her. Slowly he drew from an inner pocket a gold-mounted case of alligator skin and selected a fresh cigar, lighting it on the stump of the old one. Finally he said:

“Dix, I’m taking some rough talk from you. But never mind – now. You say you know where the stuff is, but you won’t tell me.”

“Not now. I’ll keep that information to trade with, Tex.”

“Well and good. I’ll tell you that you can’t get it without a little help from me. And you’re not going to get it. Tell me where it is, and I’ll put it through and split with you. It’ll have to be pretty quick, too. If you won’t, you don’t get your loot. And you give up my boy Tom – ”

“What’ll you do, Tex?” She was faintly smiling.

“Oh, I won’t shoot you. I’ll protect myself better’n that. But I’ll run you off the coast. You’ll have turned your last card out here.”

To this she said simply nothing. For a moment her two eyes met his one full. Then he strolled away. And the day passed.

Doane stood by the rail in the dusk of early evening looking in through the open doorway. The social hall was gay with flags, the dragon of China hung flat over the talking machine with the American and British colors draped on either hand. The little teachers had on their brightest and best. Miss Andrews in particular, wore a pink party gown that might have been made by a village dressmaker – or, more likely, by herself – and flushed prettily as she chatted with young Braker. The men were all in their dinner coats.

Dixie Carmichael, in the inevitable blue middy blouse, sat quietly reading in a corner. A strange creature, always imperturbably girlish. Duane had observed her casually on the boat and about the Astor House at Shanghai, and despite the curious tales that drifted along the coast – already the girl had acquired an almost legendary fame – he had never seen her other than discreetly quiet. Men who had observed her on the steamer from Hong Kong after the outraged British wives as good as drummed her out of town asserted that she exhibited not so much as a ruffle of the nerves. A girl without emotion, apparently; certainly without a moral sense.

She had for a time managed a gambling house on Bubbling Well Road, Shanghai, but this year seemed to be more active up Peking way. At least she had made several trips to the north. There were moments when her thin, nearly expressionless face bore a look of infinite age; yet she was young. It would be interesting, he reflected, to know of her home and her youth, of the remarkable deficiency (or the equally remarkable gift) that had sent her out alone, with her hair down her back, to pit her uncanny quickness of thought and her sordid purpose against the desperately clever rascals of the coast.

When again he passed the doorway they were dancing – a waltz. Dixie and young Kane were together. Miss Means, primmer than ever, moved about with a tall Australian. Braker was with little Miss Andrews. The others of the younger men danced humorously with one another. The Manila Kid stood lankily, gloomily, by the talking machine, sorting records.

There was a bustling outside the farther door; musical voices; the shimmering of satin in the light; and the viceroy came in, escorting his daughter and attended by all his suite. At the sight of Miss Hui Fei as she appeared in the doorway and stepped lightly over the sill Doane caught his breath. She wore an American costume, a gown of soft material in rose color trimmed with silver, the stockings and little slippers in silver as well. A girl at any college or suburban dance back home might have dressed like that. Her richly black hair was parted on the side; masses of it waved carelessly down over her temples and part of the broad forehead. Her color was high, her eyes were bright. The eagerly Western quality he had sensed in her was dominant now, triumphant as youth can be triumphant.

Doane, for a moment, pressed a hand to his eyes. He could not relate this radiantly Western girl with the quaintly Oriental figure he had last seen by moonlight on the boat deck. It was difficult, too, to understand her bright happiness. Had her insistently modern spirit prevailed over her father’s resolve to die? Or was she, after all, carried away by girlishly high spirits at the thought of a party? On the latter possibility Doane set his teeth; it raided thoughts of Oriental fatalism and surface adaptability that he could not face. Surely the girl who had talked so earnestly, who had so clearly exhibited a Western view of her father’s predicament, was more than Oriental at heart.

The most deeply sobering thought, of course, was that he should so poignantly care. The mere sight of her thrilled him, shook him. All night and during this day he had been fighting the new shining sense of her in his heart; it was clear now that the battle was a losing one. It was true, then; the last broken shards of his elaborately built up, wholly mental philosophy of life had crashed hopelessly about his ears.

The pity of it seemed to him, even then, to be that he was possessed of such abounding vitality of body and mind. He felt a young man. He was never ill, never even tired. Only accident, he felt, could shorten his life. Certainly he wouldn’t take it himself; he had gone all through that. He would have to go dully on and on; he was like an engine that is using but a fraction of its proper power. He had not known that his need was a woman until he met this woman. To no other, he felt, could he give the rich upwellings of emotion in his heart; and vital emotion, he had tragically learned three years earlier, can not be repressed indefinitely. There was a breaking point… He was, even now, bringing up favorable arguments. This young woman, as she had admitted, like himself, stood between the worlds. She could never be happy in China; hardly out of it. If… If… Thoughts came, bitter thoughts, of his years, of his poverty. The thing had the grip of a demoniac possession. He had seen other men mad over the one woman, and had pitied them; but now he… He called himself savagely, in his heart, a fool. Yet the wild hopes mounted.

The waltz was over. The Kid changed the records and ground the machine. An interpreter left the group of mandarins and spoke with one of the Australians; led the man back to his excellency. A moment later the music sounded again, and the Australian danced lightly away with Miss Hui Fei in what Doane had no means of knowing was the very new one-step. He had never danced; plainly she loved it. She moved like a fairy – light, utterly graceful, her oval face, when she turned, flushed a little and soberly radiant.