Parrot Co. | Page 6

to do
tricks."
"But the man!" impatiently.

He eyed her, mildly surprised. "Oh, he puzzles us all a bit, you know.
Well educated; somewhere back a gentleman; from the States. Of
course I don't know; something shady, probably. They don't tramp
about like this otherwise. For all that, he's rather a decent sort; no
bounder like that rotter we left at Mandalay. He never talks about
himself. I fancy he's lonesome again."
"Lonesome?"
"It's the way, you know. These poor beggars drop aboard for the night,
merely to see a white woman again, to hear decent English, to dress and
dine like a human being. They disappear the next day, and often we
never see them again."
"What do they do?" The question came to her lips mechanically.
"Paddy-fields. White men are needed to oversee them. And then, there's
the railway, and there's the new oil-country north of Prome. You'll see
the wells to-morrow. Rather fancy this Warrington chap has been
working along the new pipelines. They're running them down to
Rangoon. Well, there goes the last bag. Will you excuse me? The
lading bills, you know. If he's with us tomorrow, I'll have him put the
parrot through its turns. An amusing little beggar."
"Why not introduce him to me?"
"Beg pardon?"
"I'm not afraid," quietly.
"By Jove, no! But this is rather difficult, you know. If he shouldn't turn
out right . . ." with commendable hesitance.
"I'll take all the responsibility. It's a whim."
"Well, you American girls are the eighth wonder of the world." The
purser was distinctly annoyed. "And it may be an impertinence on my
part, but I never yet saw an American woman who would accept advice

or act upon it."
"Thanks. What would you advise?" with dangerous sweetness.
"Not to meet this man. It's irregular. I know nothing about him. If you
had a father or a brother on board. . . ."
"Or even a husband!" laughing.
"There you are!" resignedly. "You laugh. You women go everywhere,
and half the time unprotected."
"Never quite unprotected. We never venture beyond the call of
gentlemen."
"That is true," brightening. "You insist on meeting this chap?"
"I do not insist; only, I am bored, and he might interest me for an hour."
She added: "Besides, it may annoy the others."
The purser grinned reluctantly. "You and the colonel don't get on. Well,
I'll introduce this chap at dinner. If I don't. . . .
"I am fully capable of speaking to him without any introduction
whatever." She laughed again. "It will be very kind of you."
When he had gone she mused over this impulse so alien to her
character. An absolute stranger, a man with a past, perhaps a fugitive
from justice; and because he looked like Arthur Ellison, she was
seeking his acquaintance. Something, then, could break through her
reserve and aloofness? She had traveled from San Francisco to
Colombo, unattended save by an elderly maiden who had risen by
gradual stages from nurse to companion, but who could not be made to
remember that she was no longer a nurse. In all these four months Elsa
had not made half a dozen acquaintances, and of these she had not
sought one. Yet, she was asking to meet a stranger whose only
recommendation was a singular likeness to another man. The purser
was right. It was very irregular.

"Parrot & Co.!" she murmured. She searched among the phantoms
moving to and fro upon the ledge; but the man with the cage was gone.
It was really uncanny.
She dropped her arms from the rail and went to her stateroom and
dressed for dinner. She did not give her toilet any particular care. There
was no thought of conquest, no thought of dazzling the man in khaki. It
was the indolence and carelessness of the East, where clothes become
only necessities and are no longer the essentials of adornment.
Elsa Chetwood was twenty-five, lithely built, outwardly reposeful, but
dynamic within. Education, environment and breeding had somewhat
smothered the glowing fires. She was a type of the ancient repression of
woman, which finds its exceptions in the Aspasias and Helens and
Cleopatras of legend and history. In features she looked exactly what
she was, well-bred and well-born. Beauty she also had, but it was the
cold beauty of northern winter nights. It compelled admiration rather
than invited it. Spiritually, Elsa was asleep. The fire was there, the gift
of loving greatly, only it smoldered, without radiating even the
knowledge of its presence. Men loved her, but in awe, as one loves the
marbles of Phidias. She knew no restraint, and yet she had passed
through her stirless years restrained. She was worldly without being
more than normally cynical; she was rich without being either frugal or
extravagant.