Dragons Blood | Page 4

for a long time; and Rudolph felt that something beyond the
territory of words remained to be said, and that the one brilliant epoch
of his life now drew madly to a close.
"What do you think of it all?" the woman asked suddenly, gravely, as
though they had been isolated together in the deep spaces of the same
thought.
"I do not yet--Of what?" rejoined Rudolph, at a loss.
"Of all this." She waved an eloquent little gesture toward the
azure-lighted gulf.
"Oh," he said. "Of the world?"
"Yes," she answered slowly. "The world. Life." Her tone, subdued and
musical, conveyed in the mere words their full enigma and full
meaning. "All this that we see."
"Who can tell?" He took her seriously, and ransacked all his store of
second-hand philosophy for a worthy answer,--a musty store, dead and
pedantic, after the thrilling spirit of her words. "Why, I think--it is--is it
not all now the sense-manifest substance of our duty? Pardon. I am
obscure. 'Das versinnlichte Material unserer Pflicht' No?"
Her clear laughter startled him.
"Oh, how moral!" she cried. "What a highly moral little griffin!"
She laughed again (but this time it was like the splash of water in a
deep well), and turned toward him that curiously tilted point of chin
and mouth, her eyes shadowy and mocking. She looked young
again,--the spirit of youth, of knowledge, of wonderful brightness and
unbelief.

"Must we take it so very, very hard?" she coaxed. "Isn't it just a place to
be happy in?"
As through a tumult he heard, and recognized the wisdom of the ages.
"Because," she added, "it lasts such a little while--"
On the rail their hands suddenly touched. He was aware of nothing but
the nearness and pallor of her face, the darkness of her eyes shining up
at him. All his life seemed to have rushed concentrating into that one
instant of extreme trouble, happiness, trembling fascination.
Footsteps sounded on the deck behind them; an unwelcome voice
called jocosely:--
"Good efening!" The ship's doctor advanced with a roguish, paternal air.
"You see at the phosphor, not?"
Even as she whipped about toward the light, Rudolph had seen, with a
touch of wonder, how her face changed from a bitter frown to the most
friendly smile. The frown returned, became almost savage, when the fat
physician continued:--
"To see the phosphor is too much moon, Mrs. Forrester?"
Had the steamer crashed upon a reef, he would hardly have noticed
such a minor shipwreck. Mrs. Forrester? why, then--When the doctor,
after ponderous pleasantries, had waddled away aft, Rudolph turned
upon her a face of tragedy.
"Was that true?" he demanded grimly.
"Was what true?" she asked, with baby eyes of wonder, which no
longer deceived, but angered.
"What the doctor said." Rudolph's voice trembled. "The tittle--the title
he gave you."
"Why, of course," she laughed.

"And you did not tell me!" he began, with scorn.
"Don't be foolish," she cut in. From beneath her skirt the toe of a small
white shoe tapped the deck angrily. Of a sudden she laughed, and
raised a tantalizing face, merry, candid, and inscrutable. "Why, you
never asked me, and--and of course I thought you were saying it all
along. You have such a dear, funny way of pronouncing, you know."
He hesitated, almost believing; then, with a desperate gesture, wheeled
and marched resolutely aft. That night it was no Prussian snores which
kept him awake and wretched. "Everything is finished," he thought
abysmally. He lay overthrown, aching, crushed, as though pinned under
the fallen walls of his youth.
At breakfast-time, the ship lay still beside a quay where mad crowds of
brown and yellow men, scarfed, swathed, and turbaned in riotous colors,
worked quarreling with harsh cries, in unspeakable interweaving uproar.
The air, hot and steamy, smelled of strange earth. As Rudolph followed
a Malay porter toward the gang-plank, he was painfully aware that Mrs.
Forrester had turned from the rail and stood waiting in his path.
"Without saying good-by?" she reproached him. The injured wonder in
her eyes he thought a little overdone.
"Good-by." He could not halt, but, raising his cap stiffly, managed to
add, "A pleasant voyage," and passed on, feeling as though she had
murdered something.
He found himself jogging in a rickshaw, while equatorial rain beat like
down-pouring bullets on the tarpaulin hood, and sluiced the Chinaman's
oily yellow back. Over the heavy-muscled shoulders he caught
glimpses of sullen green foliage, ponderous and drooping; of
half-naked barbarians that squatted in the shallow caverns of shops;
innumerable faces, black, yellow, white, and brown, whirling past,
beneath other tarpaulin hoods, or at carriage windows, or shielded by
enormous dripping wicker hats, or bared to the pelting rain. Curious
odors greeted him, as of sour vegetables and of