The Shadow of the East | Page 4

thinking rapidly. He was used to making decisions quickly--he was accustomed to accepting risks at which others shied, but the risk he was now contemplating meant the taking of an unwarranted liberty that might be resented and might result in the loss of a friendship that he valued. But he was going to take the risk--as he had taken many another--he had known that from the first. He screwed his eyeglass firmer into his eye, a characteristic gesture well-known on the New York stock market.
"Ever see _Madame Butterfly_? he asked abruptly.
"Yes."
Atherton blew another big cloud of smoke.
"Damn fool, Pinkerton," he said gruffly, "Never could see the attraction myself--dancing girls--almond eyes--and all that sort of thing."
Craven made no answer but his whistling stopped suddenly and the knuckles of his clasped hands whitened. Atherton looked away quickly and his eyeglass fell with a little tinkle against a waistcoat button. There was another long pause. Finally the music died away and the stillness was broken only by the soft slap-slap of the water against the ship's side.
Atherton scowled at his immaculate deck shoes and then seized his eyeglass again decisively.
"Say, Barry, you saved my life in the Rockies that trip and I guess a fellow whose life you've saved has a pull on you no one else has. Anyhow I'll chance it, and if I'm a damned interfering meddler it's up to you to say so and I'll apologise--handsomely. Are you in a hole?"
Craven got up, walked away to the side of the yacht and leaning on the rail stared down into the water. A solitary sampan was passing the broad streak of moonlight and he watched it intently until it passed and merged into the shadows beyond.
"I've been the usual fool," he said at last quietly.
"Oh, hell!" came softly from behind him. "Chuck it, Barry. Clear out right now--with us. I'll put off sailing until tomorrow."
"I--can't."
Atherton rose and joined him, and for a moment his hand rested on the younger man's shoulder.
"I'm sorry--dashed sorry," he murmured. "Gee!" he added with a half shy, half humorous glance, wiping his forehead frankly, "I'd rather face a grizzly than do that again. Leslie keeps telling me that my habit of butting in will land me in the family vault before my time."
Craven smiled wryly.
"It's all right. I'm grateful--really. But I must hoe my own row."
The American swung irresolutely on his heels.
"That's so, that's so," he agreed reluctantly. "Oh damn it all," he burst out, "have a drink!" and going back to the table he pounded in the stopper of a soda-water-bottle savagely.
Craven laughed constrainedly as he tilted the whisky into a glass.
"Universal panacea," he said a little bitterly, "but it's not my method of oblivion."
He put the peg tumbler down with a smothered sigh.
"I must be off, Jermyn. It's time you were getting under way. It's been like the old days to have had a yarn with you again. Good luck and a quick run home--you lucky devil."
Atherton walked with him to the head of the gangway and watched him into the launch.
"We shall count on you for the Adirondacks in the summer," he called out cheerily, leaning far over the rail.
Craven looked up with a smile and waved his hand, but did not answer and the motor boat shot away toward the shore.
He landed on the big pier and lingered for a moment to watch the launch speeding back to the yacht. Then he walked slowly down the length of the stage and at the entrance found his rickshaw waiting. The two men who were squatting on the ground leaped up at his approach and one hurriedly lit a great dragon-painted paper lantern while the other held out a light dustcoat. Craven tossed it into the rickshaw and silently pointing toward the north, climbed in. He leaned back and lit a cigarette. The men sprang away in a quick dog-trot along the Bund, and then started to climb the hillside at the back of the town. They wound slowly up the narrow tortuous roads, past numberless villas, hung with lights, from which voices floated out into the quiet air.
The moon was brilliant and the night wonderfully light, but Craven paid no attention to the beauty of the scene or to the gaily lit villas. Atherton's invitation had been curiously hard to decline and even now an almost overpowering desire came over him to bid his men retrace their steps to the harbour. Then hard on the heels of that desire came thoughts that softened the hard lines that had gathered about his mouth. He pitched his cigarette away as if with it he threw from him an actual temptation, and resolutely put out of his mind Atherton and the suggestion of flight.
Still climbing upward the rickshaw passed the last of the outlying European villas