The Seeds of Enchantment | Page 5

very glad to be out of it and alive. What brings you to Singapore?"
"Pleasure," said the giant, laconically. "Won't you present me to your friend?"
Beamish got up; stammered clumsy acknowledgment to the introduction.
"And now you must know Madame." Rene, linking an arm through Dicky's, led Beamish following to his own table. "Ma chere, allow me to present to you my very good comrade the Colonel Smith, and the Doctor Beamish."
Dicky, bending to take the girl's proffered hand, was conscious only of thrill a strange, warm thrill that sent blood throbbing to his temples. Hitherto, women had played but a small part in Dicky's life; had been, at best, only the pals of an idle week; but now, for the first time, looking down on that mass of hair blonde as his own, feeling the cling of those soft white fingers, he knew the power which is woman's, and knowing it, knew passion. There could be no palship between man and a creature such as this: only... Suddenly shame for his thought took Dicky by the throat. He dropped the girl's hand. She began to speak in a quaint, stilted French which he found impossible to place.
Back at their own table, the two Englishmen ordered coffee and Manilas; dismissed See-Sim; lit up in silence. Both felt the need for speech, yet neither uttered a word. The proximity of de Gys and Melie rendered the one subject they wished to discuss impossible. They could only satisfy curiosity with occasional glances at the strange couple, at the strange, submissive man who served them. Beamish noticed that the girl only flirted with her food a spoonful of soup, the tiniest helping of curry.
Slowly the tiffin-room emptied. One by one, boys cleared and re-laid the untidy tables, vanished noiselessly towards the kitchens.
"Come and share our mangosteens," called de Gys. He gave some incomprehensible order to the servant, who arranged chairs so that Dicky, facing his host, sat next to the girl and Beamish opposite to her; plunged large hands into the basket, and drew out four of the fruits.
"Mangoustan," he announced. "Apple of the furthest East, of the Golden Land, of that Chryse which Ptolemy dreamed and Marco Polo the Venetian made real." Then he sliced the hard, dark-red rinds; extracted white savorous cores and laid them before his guests.
Asked Beamish, sedulous as always for information: "Where is Chryse?"
"You may well ask," answered de Gys. "Some say that Chryse is your English Burmah; some believe it this very Malaya, that hides Solomon's treasure among its virgin forests; but to me, Chryse, the land of Gold, is our Indo- China; Survarnabhumi of the ancients; last unexplored territory of this dull old earth."
"But earth is not dull," protested Melie. "Even I, who know as yet so little of it, have realized..." and she began to speak in that strange French which so puzzled Dicky.
Listening to her, it seemed to him as though he heard some far-away voice out of the olden time, sprightly and speculative. So might Marie Antoinette have gossiped, playing aristocratic milk-maid in the Laiterie of Versailles: so, too, might Marie Antoinette have fascinated. For again the spell of this woman was on Dicky: behind all her talk sex lurked, gallant and glamorous... But now de Gys took up the challenge, a torrent of words pouring from his red lips :
"Dull! Yes, dull. What would you? The sword is broken, we live in the age of the pen. At least so they tell us, your politicians masquerading as priests, your lawyers in Pope's clothing. Pah!" he struck the table with his clenched fist till the plates rattled "the world plays at Sunday School; and for such as you and me, old friend, there is no more to do. We are mere 'soldiers'. Useless. On the scrap heap."
"Speak for yourself," answered Dicky. "I'm only a civilian, a merchant of cotton."
The red man laughed. "Tell that to the lawyers and politicians at home; but tell it not to me, de Gys, who remember you, haggard in your torn khaki, cursing as only you English can curse, a smoking rifle in your hand."
The Long'un blushed; then he drawled with a malicious smile: "My friend the doctor is an International Socialist. I beg of you to respect his opinions."
But at that de Gys exploded.
"Socialist! Internationalist! Thunder of God, must I eat mangosteens with a traitor." He eyed Beamish, who had assumed the superior air of his breed, as a gardener eyes the slug in a carrot bed.
"Vive la politesse," murmured Dicky.
De Gys apologized; prepared more mangosteens.
"La Socialisme," began Beamish. Now there was no holding the Frenchman.
"Pah!" he thundered. "Le Socialisme! May the devil fly away with it. Le Socialisme! War is dead. Vive la paix! Let us wave the red flag and chant the Internationale. Pah!" His eyes glinted.