The Ragged Edge | Page 5

the chair boys small money for rice. The four tourists

contributed varied sums: the spinsters ten cents each, the girl a shilling,
the young man a Mexican dollar. The lunches were individual affairs:
sandwiches, bottled olives and jam commandeered from the Victoria.
"You are alone?" said one of the spinsters--Prudence Jedson.
"Yes," answered the girl.
"Aren't you afraid?"
"Of what?"--serenely.
"The men."
"They know."
"They know what?"
"When and when not to speak. You have only to look resolute and
proceed upon your way."
Ah Cum lent an ear covertly.
"How old are you?" demanded Miss Prudence.
The spinsters offered a good example of how singular each human
being is, despite the fact that in sisters the basic corpuscle is the same.
Prudence was the substance and Angelina the shadow; for Angelina
never offered opinions, she only agreed with those advanced by
Prudence.
"I am twenty," said the girl.
Prudence shook her head. "You must have travelled a good deal to
know so much about men."
The girl smiled and began to munch a sandwich. Secretly she was
gratified to be assigned to the rôle of an old traveller. Still, it was true
about men. Seldom they molested a woman who appeared to know

where she was going and who kept her glance resolutely to the fore.
Said Prudence, with commendable human kindness: "My sister and I
are going on to Shanghai and Peking. If you are going that way, why
not join us."
The girl's blood ran warmly for a minute. "That is very kind of you, but
I am on my way to America. Up to dinner yesterday I did not expect to
come to Canton. I was the last on board. Wasn't the river beautiful
under the moonlight?"
"We did not leave our cabins. Did you bring any luggage?"
"All I own. In this part of the world it is wise never to be separated
from your luggage."
The girl fished into the bottle for an olive. How clever she was, to fool
everybody so easily! Not yet had any one suspected the truth: that she
was, in a certain worldly sense, only four weeks old, that her every act
had been written down on paper beforehand, and that her success lay in
rigidly observing the rules which she herself had drafted to govern her
conduct.
She finished the olive and looked up. Directly in range stood the
strange young man, although he was at the far side of the loft. He was
leaning against a window frame, his hat in his hand. She noted the dank
hair on his forehead, the sweat of revolting nature. What a pity! But
why?
There was no way over this puzzle, nor under it, nor around it: that men
should drink, knowing the inevitable payment. This young man did not
drink because he sought the false happiness that lured men to the bottle.
To her mind, recalling the picture of him the night before, there had
been something tragic in the grim silent manner of his tippling. Peg
after peg had gone down his blistered throat, but never had a smile
touched his lips, never had his gaze roved inquisitively. Apparently he
had projected beyond his table some hypnotic thought, for it had held
him all through the dining hour.

Evidently he was gazing at the dull red roofs of the city: but was he
registering what he saw? Never glance sideways at man, the old
Kanaka woman had said. Yes, yes; that was all very well in ordinary
cases; but yonder was a soul in travail, if ever she had seen one. Here
was not the individual against whom she had been warned. He had not
addressed to her even the most ordinary courtesy of fellow travellers;
she doubted that he was even aware of her existence. She went further:
she doubted that he was fully conscious of where he was.
Suddenly she became aware of the fact that he had brought no lunch. A
little kindness would not bring the world tumbling about her ears. So
she approached him with sandwiches.
"You forgot your lunch," she said. "Won't you take these?"
For a space he merely stared at her, perhaps wondering if she were real.
Then a bit of colour flowed into his sunken white cheeks.
"Thank you; but I've a pocket full of water-chestnuts. I'm not hungry."
"Better eat these, even if you don't want them," she urged. "My name is
Ruth Enschede."
"Mine is Howard Spurlock."
Immediately he stepped back. Instinctively she imitated this action,
chilled and a little frightened at the expression of terror that confronted
her. Why should he stare at her in this fashion?--for all the world as if
she had pointed a pistol at his head?
CHAPTER III
He had said it, spoken it like