The Seeds of Enchantment | Page 4

American
plan. Still, in this first dream-country, the endowment of parenthood
was already an accomplished fact parents, at the age of forty, becoming

entitled (rent and taxes free) to one jolly little house and two jolly little
pensions which secured for them most of the comforts hot baths and
evening dress excluded 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.