Parrot Co. | Page 7

Her independence was inherent and not acquired. She had
laid down certain laws for herself to follow; and that these often
clashed with the laws of convention, which are fetish to those who
divide society into three classes, only mildly amused her. Right from
wrong she knew, and that sufficed her.
Her immediate relatives were dead; those who were distantly related
remained so, as they had no part in her life nor she in theirs. Relatives,
even the best of them, are practically strangers to us. They have their
own affairs and interests, and if these touch ours it is generally through
the desire to inherit what we have. So Elsa went her way alone. From
her father she had inherited a remarkable and seldom errant judgment.
To her, faces were generally book-covers, they repelled or attracted;
and she found large and undiminishing interest in the faculty of

pressing back the covers and reading the text. Often battered covers
held treasures, and often the editions de luxe were swindles. But in
between the battered covers and the exquisite Florentine hand-tooling
there ranged a row of mediocre books; and it was among these that Elsa
found that her instinct was not wholly infallible, as will be seen.
To-day she was facing the first problem of her young life, epochal. She
was, as it were, to stop and begin life anew. And she didn't know, she
wasn't sure.
There were few passengers aboard. There were three fussy old English
maidens under the protection of a still fussier old colonel, who
disagreed with everybody because his liver disagreed with him. Twenty
years of active service in Upper India had seriously damaged that
physiological function, and "pegs" no longer mellowed him. The
quartet greatly amused Elsa. Their nods were abrupt, and they spoke in
the most formal manner. She was under grave suspicion; in the first
place, she was traveling alone, in the second place, she was an
American. At table there was generally a desultory conversation, and
many a barb of malice Elsa shot from her bow. Figuratively, the
colonel walked about like a porcupine, bristling with arrows instead of
quills. Elsa could have shouted at times, for the old war-dog was
perfectly oblivious. There was, besides, the inevitable German tourist,
who shelled with questions every man who wore brass-buttons, until
there was some serious talk of dropping him astern some day. He had
shelled the colonel, but that gentleman was snugly encased in the finest
and most impenetrable Bessemer, complacency.
Upon these Irrawaddy boats the purser is usually the master of
ceremonies in the dining-saloon. The captain and his officers rarely
condescended. Perhaps it was too much trouble to dress; perhaps
tourists had disgusted them with life; at any rate, they remained in
obscurity.
Elsa usually sat at the purser's right, and to-night she found the stranger
sitting quietly at her side. The chair had been vacant since the departure
from Mandalay. Evidently the purser had decided to be thorough in
regard to her wishes. It would look less conspicuous to make the

introduction in this manner. And she wanted to meet this man who had
almost made her cry out in astonishment.
"Miss Chetwood, Mr. Warrington." This was as far as the purser would
unbend.
The colonel's eyes popped; the hands of the three maidens fluttered.
Warrington bowed awkwardly, for he was decidedly confused.
"Ha!" boomed the German. "Vat do you tink uff . . . ."
And from soup to coffee Warrington eluded, dodged, stepped under
and ran around the fusillade of questions.
Elsa laughed softly. There were breathing-spells, to be sure. Under the
cover of this verbal bombardment she found time to inspect the
stranger. The likeness, so close at hand, started a ringing in her ears and
a flutter in her throat. It was almost unbelievable. He was bigger,
broader, his eyes were keener, but there was only one real difference:
this man was rugged, whereas Arthur was elegant. It was as if nature
had taken two forms from the same mold, and had finished but one of
them. His voice was not unpleasant, but there were little sharp points of
harshness in it, due quite possibly to the dust.
"I am much interested in that little parrot of yours. I have heard about
him."
"Oh! I suppose you've heard what they call us?" His eyes looked
straight into hers, smilingly.
"Parrot & Co.? Yes. Will you show him off to-morrow?"
"I shall be very happy to."
But all the while he was puzzling over the purser's unaccountable
action in deliberately introducing him to this brown-eyed,
golden-skinned young woman. Never before had such a thing occurred
upon these boats. True, he had occasionally been spoken to; an idle

question flung at him, like a bare bone to a dog. If flung