The Seeds of Enchantment | Page 4

which a less enlightened age had reserved for the "comfortable classes."
Occasionally, when seriously tackled by Dicky about the difficulties of running such a State, Beamish would admit that there might be a certain danger from "bureaucracy".
"Still, it's coming, Long 'un," he would finish. "If we can only eliminate parasitic capitalists and reactionaries like yourself, the things a cert." Whereat the Honourable Dicky "Long'un" to his intimates would subside into amused silence.
Which amused silence, and a latent streak of furtiveness in Beamish's nature, had hitherto prevented the Socialist from speaking of his second dream-country, that ultimate Utopia of the human race where was neither work nor war nor wages, neither eating of meat nor bibbing of wine (our doctor, his own mild whiskies-and-soda apart, strenuously supported Prohibition) but only Man and Woman, refined to the Absolute Beauty, existing flower-like among flowery meads.
They had finished their curry, and were cloying palates with Goola Malacca pudding before Cyprian ventured his next remark.
"The eating of meat, by stimulating the animal passions," began Beamish... but the sentence died, unfinished, at his lips.
And in that moment not alone Beamish but every single man throughout the big windowless tiffin-room, ceased talking abruptly, as though stricken with aphasia. They sat, forty or fifty Europeans, motionless and staring, manners forgotten. Only the imperturbable Orientals still moved, silent on embroidered slippers, among the hushed tables. For suddenly, unexpectedly, each man saw the inmost vision of his heart, the dream-girl of swamp and jungle-cabin, visibly materialized before his astounded eyes.
She came among them, moving quietly, rhythmically: a tall, stately presence, golden-haired, rose-complexioned as the women of the West, violet-eyed, white-handed, lowbreasted, long of limb: a dream and a temptation.
The magical moment passed; men breathed again, words returned to their lips. After all, it was only a woman, an ordinary European woman: "a devilish good-looking one, though." They left it at that, and resumed interrupted conversations; all of them except the two globe-trotters; and they could only watch, fascinated.
The girl, she could hardly be more than nineteen, seemed wholly unconscious of the impression she created. She walked very slowly up the room, eyes inspecting each table, hands quiet at her sides. She was dressed with extreme simplicity: lace blouse open at throat, short skirt of Chefoo silk matching the beige of silk stockings, suede shoes on slender feet. Her hair she wore no hat seemed to Dicky's eyes like a great casque of molten gold under which the face showed flawless and luring.
The girl had almost reached their table before Dicky realized that she was not alone. Behind her came a man, a red-haired, red-bearded giant of a man, with fierce redbrown eyes, dressed un-Englishly in wide alpaca trousers, scarlet cummerbund atop; light green tropical shootingjacket, red-lined, hanging loosely on his vast shoulders. One enormous hand swung a pith helmet; the other carried, with exaggerated care, a basket of mangosteens.
The pair made their way to a near-by table at which as if abruptly materialized appeared a little brown Oriental, clad in black silk coatee, narrow black sarong about his loins, who relieved his master submissively of his burdens and drew back a chair for the girl to sit down.
"Good Lord," thought Dicky, "it's de Gys!"
Recognition was mutual. The giant, chair-back gripped in one leg-of-mutton fist, looked up; dropped chair with a clatter; and strode across the floor bellowing in a voice loud as the scream of a bull-elephant:
"By the seven sales Boches I slew at Douamont, c'est mon ami le Colonel Smith!"
Rene de Gys of the French Annamite Army, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, Medaille Militaire, Croix de Guerre with Palms, stood six-foot-two in his rope-soled canvas shoes; yet the Long'un, as he rose, insularly abashed by this boisterous greeting, overtopped him by a good three inches. They stood there, hands gripped, cynosure of every man in the tiffin-room: and Melie la blonde's violet eyes kindled to watch their meeting.
"To-morrow night will be Moon-change," mused Melie la blonde. "To-morrow night!" For the soul of Melie, as the body of Melie, was neither of East nor of West, but of her own folk, of the Flower Folk who live beyond Quivering Stone...
"Ah! But it is good to hold you by the hand again, my long friend." Rene spoke the voluble French of his native South, not the tropic-tired drawl of the Colonial. "How long since we last met? A year, is it not? No, two years. But you have not forgotten the old popotte behind Mount Kemmel, and the Rainbow cocktails we drank together. My friend, there were worse days. I told you then that we should meet again, that we should regret. But now, meeting you, I regret nothing."
"You were always the enthusiast, mon cher," began Dicky; and his French was the Parisian of the boulevards. "As for me, I am