CHAPTER XVI
In the months which had passed since their romantic parting on the bundat Shanghai, Peter the Brazen had founded all of his roseate notions ofEileen Lorimer upon the one-sided data furnished by those spirited fewhours.
He had thought of her as a lonely little creature, sole inhabitant of aworld apart, to which he would some time go and claim her.
He had not taken into his calculations at any time such prosaic objectsas parents, brothers, sisters, and, more vital than all, other youngmen who might have found the same qualities in Eileen to adore as hadattracted and bound him.
When, from a long-distance telephone-booth in the Hotel St. Francis, hefinally was connected with the Lorimer residence in Pasadena, it was tohear the gruff, masculine accents of a person who claimed to be herfather, and who was brusque and impulsive in his inquiries regardingPeter's identity.
Peter did not know, or realize, that Mr. Lorimer would have willinglycut off his right hand for the young man who had restored his daughterto him nearly a year before. He was simply struck more or less dumb,with a schoolboy sort of feeling, when he was aware that, five hundredmiles overland, a gruff father wanted righteously to know his business.
By adroit parrying, without giving out his identity, Peter at lengthsecured the information he wanted. Romola Borria had been truthful;Eileen was attending the university at San Friole.
With her San Friole address jotted down in the back of his rednote-book, Peter endeavored to be connected with Miss Lorimer bytelephone. After a trying pause the long-distance operator advised himthat the residence in question did not possess a telephone.
Quartering what remained of his capital by the costly Pasadena call,Peter resorted to the telegraph stand, and waited in the lobby for ananswer.
The first of the several bits of unpalatable news he was to be givenduring the day was delivered to him as he waited, when, unnoticed atfirst, a Chinese gentleman, a Mr. San Toy Fong, a passenger fromShanghai on the _King of Asia_, came out of the dining-room andoccupied a chair at his side, cordially and candidly revealing anidentity which Peter had suspected during the entire voyage.
"Mr. Moore," the emissary began in a low, confident voice, "I amreturning to China to-night on the _Chenyo Maru_. Before I sail, ifthere is some message----"
Peter shook a slow decision. "I'm through with China, through with LenYang, through with wireless. I intend settling down on my little ranchnear Santa Cruz. That may save your trailers annoyance."
The polished Chinese gentleman smiled. "Evidently you are not awarethat your little ranch is no longer in your possession. You see, Mr.Moore, when we are interested in a person, we take pains to exhaust thetiniest details. Your ranch was sold about three months ago; in amoment of absent-mindedness, perhaps, you neglected to pay the taxes.However, if you but say the word----"
"Thank you," Peter headed him off in a tired and indifferent voice."You've saved me a trip for nothing. After all, the property isprobably better off in other hands. Now I have nothing in the world toworry about but myself. _Bon voyage_, Mr. Fong! And my respectsto----"
But San Toy Fong had departed.
After an exasperating wait, a bell-boy brought to Peter a telegraphicreply to his San Friole message, which read:
"Take the twelve-thirty train. Will meet you at station."
And it was signed by Eileen Lorimer.
Peter was again conscious of his diminishing funds when he peeled off abill at the railroad ticket-window and paid the round-trip fare. Butany thoughts upon his possible financial embarrassment were set asideas the train rolled out into the open country, and his mind picturedhis reception at the hands of the young woman who meant quite as muchto him as life.
He pictured a dozen greetings, each different and each the same, withEileen in every case weeping with joy at beholding him, and wrappingher slim, warm arms about his neck.
He became more nervous and excited as the villages passed by, andpresently the trim concrete structure lettered in gold and black as SanFriole came into sight around a curve.
Alighting, he gave his grips to a boy with instructions to have themchecked; and he looked eagerly among the crowd of students for thelovely face of Eileen.
At length he discovered her, and simultaneously she must havediscovered him; for she elbowed her way through the mob, flushed andbreathless, and seized his hands, looking at him with eyes that seemedto glow.
And to Peter the Brazen she was quite the same Eileen as the girl of ayear ago; no older, and quite as lovely, with the same pretty flush inher cheeks, the same rosebud mouth, the same sweet and lovableexpression.
The little speech he had prepared on the train would not leave hislips; and he could only look, with the color heating his cheeks, asEileen smiled tenderly and a little meekly, as she had smiled when theyparted at the consulate in Shanghai over a year before.
He began to realize, even as he considered and reconsidered his motive,that she was mutely begging him not to kiss her at this time. Perhapsthe pressure of her fingers, a subtle pressure away from her instead oftoward her, gave him this understanding.
He became aware gradually of another presence, as he was jostled fromthis side to that by other new arrivals, conscious of the sidelong lookthat Eileen was giving another man.
With a slight feeling of resentment, Peter examined this interloper,finding himself gazing into the unfriendly, tanned face of a man ofabout his own age, with keen, sharp, brown eyes, a dimple in his chin,and a thick, blue book under his arm. Through a maze Peter heard hisname spoken, then the words "Professor Hodgson;" and he found himselfshaking hands briskly with the invader.
Then Peter excused himself, returning with the baggage-checks, and hediscovered both Eileen and Professor Hodgson examining him with thefrank curiosity that one might bestow upon some wandering minstrel, aforeigner, an alien. He felt, as the odd member of any triangle issure to feel, that he was a lone bird; that Eileen and her gloweringprofessor were drawn together by some bond unknown to him, but whosenature he warmly resented.
And thus began the crumbling of the rosy crystalline little world thatPeter had created for the sole occupation of Eileen Lorimer.
As the three walked slowly down the station platform, he felt thetension, the exaggerated repugnance, which any outdone suitor is boundto feel toward his successful rival. He felt sick and useless, andsomehow he wished he was back aboard the train again. He had blown hisdream-bubble, rapturously contemplating the shining, dancing,multicolored surface as it expanded and became of size. And thisbubble had been rudely pricked.
He felt Eileen's light hand upon his arm, and he heard her voicesuddenly become weighted with feminine importance. She was saying:
"Mr. Moore and I have a great deal to talk over. You will excuse me,won't you, until to-night?"
Professor Hodgson, frowning, nodded courteously. "Perhaps Mr. Moorewould like to go, if he cares to stag it. I'm afraid every girl intown has been invited by now."
"Stag what?" queried Peter in a dry voice.
"There's to be a St. Valentine's ball to-night," enthused the girl."St. Valentine's Day is the fourteenth, you know. I'm sure you'd enjoyit! You'll go, won't you?"
"But--but----" stammered Peter. "I had hoped that you and I couldspend the evening by ourselves."
"Oh, but I couldn't do that!" cried Eileen, with reproach in her big,gray eyes. "Professor Hodgson invited me ages ago! Can't we talk thisafternoon and to-morrow. I'll cut classes all day. Please go! I'llgive you every other dance! The professor won't mind. He's an olddear!"
The old dear frowned a shade more darkly, and Peter derived someencouragement from the sign.
"I'll go on that condition," said Peter gaily. "Every other dance withMiss Lorimer!"
"That's fine!" Professor Hodgson rejoined. "Have you a costume?"
"Your wireless uniform!" cried Eileen. "You look wonderful in that!"
Professor Hodgson was preparing to remove his dour
look from theirvicinity. "I'll be around at eight," he said. "See you later, Mr.Moore."
"So-long!" Peter retorted affably, and Eileen squeezed his arm ever solightly.
"I want to talk to you all afternoon!" she declared with her adorablesmile, when the professor was out of earshot. "Shall we take acar-ride?"
They climbed into the front seat of an open car, and Peter was gladwhen the girl linked her arm through his and snuggled close to his side.
"I want you to tell me everything from the very beginning," she saidwith a bright smile. "I want to know why you left me so suddenly inShanghai. I had a hundred questions to ask. You were mean!"
"You can begin wherever you please," said Peter amiably.
"Then, why," demanded Eileen, giving him a hungry little look, "didn'tyou let me stay in Shanghai?"
"Because I was in love with you," Peter replied abruptly. "You were indanger. So was I. I wanted to get you out of China as quickly aspossible, because, you see, my dear, the man who had his agents kidnapyou, and who was having you transported to China on the _Vandalia_,would have recaptured you without difficulty. Do you mind if I tellyou, Eileen, that it broke my heart when I realized that we wouldn'tsee one another for goodness knows how long a time?"
Eileen glanced pensively at the green lawns and the flower-gardenswhich flowed past the car, and her eyes returned to his face with aquestion in them. Her hand snuggled into his.
"Tell me the truth, Peter. You thought I was just an innocent,helpless little thing, now didn't you? You said to yourself, 'I'll getmyself into all sorts of trouble with her on my hands.' Didn't you saythat to yourself, Peter?"
"I did. You're right. You were not made for that place. If you'lllet me, I'll tell you what you were made for."
"You needn't," said Eileen with a sigh. "Because I know. You aregoing to tell me that I am just the right size for a bungalow for two,of which you are the second, and that I need some big man like yourselfto have around, to shield and protect me, to smooth and round off thesharp corners of this harsh old life."
"How did you guess?" gasped Peter.
"Maybe your eyes said that when you told me to go home that day, andmaybe other men have told me the same thing! Anyway, that is what youhave come here to tell me--or haven't you?--that you are all ready nowto leave behind the terribly wicked and adventurous life you've beenleading, and settle down, and live respectably forever after! Isn'tthat the truth?"
"You're something of a mind-reader."
"No, I'm not. But I have sense. Peter, I still think, just as Ithought that terrible night when you slid down the rope from the_Vandalia_ with me dangling from your neck, that dreadful night on theWhang-poo in the fog, that you're the finest and bravest man on earth.That's why I let you make love to me on the bund; because--well,because I wanted you to come back!"
"In return," Peter responded with enthusiasm, "I have kept you next tomy heart all of that time, thinking of you every time I feltdiscouraged, looking upon you always as a refuge, exactly as you say,when China got the best of me."
"Has China got the best of you, Peter?"
"It has! I was chased out of the Yellow Empire with a broken arm, byagents of the same man who tried to kidnap you. I removed the splintsonly this morning. Since I saw you, I have paid a visit to thedreadful red city where you were being taken, escaped, and made my waythrough India and the Straits Settlements and back to Hong Kong."
"And they shot you!"
He nodded, and she shivered again, while the fingers against his palmstirred.
"I've put China behind me forever, I hope, and now, a little older, alittle wiser, and very weary, I've come to lay the same worthless oldheart at your dear little feet!"
"And the worthless old feet will have to kick the dear, big heartaside," said Eileen sadly. "Oh, Peter," she exclaimed, suddenlycontrite as she saw the look of pain that came into his face, "you knowI wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world! But I am in earnest,deadly in earnest, Peter! I refuse positively to have you consider meany longer as a poor, helpless, clinging little thing, made only to bepetted and protected! I'm not like that, Peter! If you'd onlywritten, I would have told you. You're not afraid of anything in theworld; nor am I! I love adventure quite as much as you do, Peter, andthe moment you told me, back there in Shanghai, that I must hurry homebecause it wasn't safe, I made up my mind that I would equip myself togo into some of those wonderful adventures with you! ProfessorHodgson, the Chinese language professor, is an expert shot with arevolver, and I've wheedled him into giving me lessons. That's forself-protection. Then the Japanese woman who is general chambermaid inmy rooming-house is teaching me jiu-jitsu.
"In addition to that, I'm studying for a doctor's degree. When thecourse is finished I am going to join you in China. We'll invade thatdreadful mining city alone, just you and I, and we'll make it the mostwonderful place in China! You see, Peter, I intend to be a medicalmissionary; and you won't have to worry your dear old brain about methe least bit. If you won't take me, I'll go by myself!"
"Sweetheart," Peter declared with difficulty, "you are talking throughyour hat!"
She shrugged and smiled. "Won't you take me?"
"You know I'd fetch you the man in the moon if you wanted him badlyenough!"
"And you'll get that silly old notion of a bungalow for two out of yourhead?"
"I'll try. It will be a hard job. And, Eileen----"
"Yes, Peter?"
"You don't care about this Professor Hodgson, do you?"
"Oh, no, Peter! Once or twice he's tried to make love, and you couldsee, couldn't you, how furious he was when we left him?"
"I thought my goose was cooked," sighed Peter.
"Silly old goose!" said Eileen, squeezing his thumb.
With shaken but immeasurably higher notions of this girl, whoseappealing gray eyes suffocated him with longing, Peter helped hischarge to alight when the end of the car line was reached, and at hersuggestion they tramped through the blossoming California fields, backto the village, talking seriously most of the way upon that ardentsubject which lay warmly upon both of their young hearts.
Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China Page 34
