"Be seated," said Mark with a mock-courtly gesture. "The chair or the bed—or the bed or the chair."
Vanya chose the bed, drawing her knees up under her chin and leaning against the frame, so that her feet, clad in the diminutive moccasins, peeped from the hem of the flowered robe. The rain pattered down with a staccato roar like a gasoline engine.
"The rainy season is unpleasant for several reasons," she volunteered. "The rains are bad enough, but the ships are in, and I work every night. That's when Shene makes his year's profit."
"You poor kid! This is a dog's life, isn't it?"
"I'm going to extremes to escape, it!"
"Yes," said Mark, sensing the dawn of a quarrel should he refer to his doubts of Vanya's story. "The rain's easing," he said to change the subject.
"Off season," the girl responded. "It won't last long." She looked at him. "If you'll kiss me," she offered almost shyly, "I'll run along to bed."
"You read my mind, Vanya!" He drew her to him, tilted her face to his—and suddenly they were again crushed to each other in a sudden. unexpected burst of passion. Vanya was the one who finally struggled free.
"Mark," she murmured, "this is dangerous. I'm frightened—for you, I mean. You're changing, softening under the spell of this accursed place."
"Why?" he exclaimed. "Because I've been a little gentle? You must like to be browbeaten!"
"No, dear," she said, and Mart thrilled at the word. "Don't you see? Shene and Loring—Shene might have been a jovial inn-keeper in Ireland, or wherever his home is, and Loring in England would be just a pleasant, clever, harmless, tea-drinking Briton—instead of one a vicious criminal and the other a wreck."
"Vanya, that's a phantom as harmless as this rain."
"It isn't. It's the way the tropics destroy white men, and when they're finally gone—you'll see! The islands will be black again, and all that's left of us will be some crumbling roads and ruined buildings and a mass of legends. The land will be what it was meant to be—pagan, primitive, and beautiful, instead of fertile, profitable, and sordid!"
"My dear," said Mark thoughtfully, "I've met men in the islands who were untouched. Rawlinson of the Colin, and his mate O'Keefe—"
"Seamen!" she cut in. "Yes—they come and go, and the land can't poison them. But it's the settlers I mean. You've just begun to live here—and dear, there's something cold and fine in you that we're risking. With all your cruelty, there's something—and you'll not kiss me again until the packet sails!"
For answer, he bent and kissed her; her unresponsiveness spurred him until his own lips felt bruised. Then she was clinging again to him, and again they were n the net of forgetfulness until a shrill, familiar voice parted them. Loring was chanting a wild accompaniment to falling rain and muffled surf.
They listened in silence to his song.
"When Tonga weeps her wet warm tears,
On bird that soars, on snake that creeps,
On White Man's ports with rotting piers,
On Black Man's hut where evil sleeps,
On monster-haunted ocean deeps
Where lonely pearling-vessel veers
Toward coral isles or lava steeps
Futile and bitter hope appears
When Tonga weeps!
Each droplet seeps in damn' smears
Along my face, my eyes, my ears,
As if I wept instead, and keeps
The memory of a Life, that leaps
Across the desolate, dying years
When Tonga weeps!"
"You see!" whispered Vanya as the chant died. "Terrible! Terrible! Even in your arms he won't let me forget."
"He 'drees his weird' for his own dead life," mused Mark soberly, "not for you, Vanya."
"But don't you think I remember too across the desolate, dying years'? I was happy once."
"I'm sorry, dear," said Mark. "Loring's a tragedy but not your tragedy. Forget him."
He kissed her, thrilling to her reluctant response.
"I can't keep you from kissing me, Mark," she said. "Heaven knows I don't want to keep you from it, except that it—frightens me. And now, the rain's stopped; I'm going to my room."
He kissed her lightly as she sat erect.
CHAPTER XXV
"Are you always so sure of yourself, Mark?" she asked. "Have you always so much faith in your good American morality?"
Mark wasn't, and knew it, recalling many a sleepless night spent in futile self-arguments, but he thought it decidedly best not to admit it.
"Right is right," he said, "and wrong is wrong. That's a simple fact, isn't it?"
"I never met a simple fact," countered Vanya. "They must exist only in countries like America."
They moved into the dark hall, and Mark felt the girl stiffen suddenly beside him.
"I'm sure I left my door open," she whispered in puzzled tones.
"Left it open? Well, it probably blew shut."
"Look!" said Vanya, as he opened the door. "Some one was here!"
A drawer of the bureau stood partly open; articles of clothing projected from it.
"I kept that in perfect order!" said the girl. "Some one—the same person—came back after the—after the things I gave you," she ended in a low whisper.
"This is becoming outrageous!" snapped Mark. "Anyway, it couldn't have been Loring; he was singing on the beach.
"Which only proves he was awake," observed Vanya.
"Isn't there any way of locking this relic of a door?"
"There's a lock, but no key." Mark examined the lock—a simple device of the cheapest make.
"I have a bunch of persona keys," he mused. "It's possible one might fit."
He slipped quietly back to hi: room and returned with a key-ring Almost his first attempt was successful; the long-unused lock turned with a shrill creaking. He slipped the key from its ring, and handed it to Vanya.
"At least," he said, "no one car turn that lock without rousing you."
He bent and kissed her, and went silently back to his room, smiling at a sardonic thought in his mind. For the key he had given her was his own latch-key, to the old-fashioned white house in far away Spring Brook.
A CURIOUS SITUATION
"Good riddance," observed Loring as he and Mark watched the receding Porpoise, some days later. "With Orris gone, I'll have a chance at the piano, if a ship happens in."
"Does Shene pay well?" queried Mark.
"Ten shillings, and I take it out in drinks. By the glass, too—the dog! —not by the bottle." He flipped a pebble in the direction of the departing Porpoise. "By the way, you and the lady seem in better mutual agreement of late."
"Yes," said Mark shortly, fearing the satyric beachcomber's keen analysis of his attitude. "Do you I know your singing disturbs her?"
"Doubtless. But that's one reason she's maintained a higher relative level than her companions. My songs waken her memory, and she struggles against the strictures of her fate. Life is to struggle, Comrade, and that's where Vanya and I differ. I remember, but I don't struggle."
"It's to her credit that she does."
"If you want credit," shrugged Loring. "The only sort that interests me is at Pearly Shene's bar."
Mark laughed, and stared out at the vanishing Porpoise, now riding far distant on the green Pacific swells. The warm sun on his back made the cool water seem even snore desirable.
"Does one swim here?" he asked.
"Who'd want to? Hong or Shene?"
"You might, or Vanya."
"I wash occasionally. Vanya carries water to her room long before you're up each morning. Probably hasn't a suit, and if she swims, it's on a deserted stretch of the beach."
"But it's safe?"
“An occasional shark, but I never saw a shark attack a person. You hear tales. Then there are Portuguese Men-of-War— those damned stinging jelly-fish what Orris calls cramp-fish; they're electric eels. But they're all rare."
"Then I'm going in. Come along?"
"No, tha
nks," said Loring lazily. "Get Vanya. She may own a suit, or she may consent to a dip without."
"She won't," said Mark sourly, turning toward the hotel. Loring's continual cynicism irritated him. He wandered slowly back; perhaps Vanya was about somewhere. He found her finally at endless mending in her room, and immediately broached the subject of a swim.
"Do you ever swim here?" he asked.
She looked up, coloring.
"I have—but well away from the Cove, and alone!"
"Have you a suit?"
She nodded.
"Get it on, then; we're swimming!"
Mark departed to his own room, and dug out his own suit and his robe. He arrayed himself, and returned for Vanya.
She was ready, draped in the inevitable flowered affair, and together they proceeded to the beach. The little bay looked strangely empty with the Porpoise away; Mark had grown to expect its familiar shape off shore.
He doffed his robe, baring his safely-bronzed shoulders and legs to the fierce sun. Vanya seemed strangely reluctant to remove hers; she looked at Loring, casually watching them from his palm a hundred yards away.
"Off with it!" ordered Mark. "Loring's harmless."
She dropped the robe diffidently to the sand, and Mark broke into an amused chuckle.
"Pre-war vintage!" he laughed. The outfit came quite to her knees, and was skirted and sleeved and bloused, as loose about her as a cotton sack.
"I've always heard that there wasn't a bathing suit in Russia," he laughed, "but you've got enough there for two of them!"
"There were several at Lake Baikal," said Vanya. "I don't know how this suit came to be with us; it was thrown in with what clothes we packed."
"It would keep you from first prize at any Atlantic City contest," chuckled Mark. "The judges would suspect you of concealing some serious defect."
"I know," said the girl, with an embarrassed smile. "I've seen your American movies in Singapore.”
"Well, into the water, anyway! I'm curious to see if it's possible to swim in that outfit."
It was barely possible, apparently. Vanya managed a few desperate strokes beyond the line of breakers; Mark kept easy pace with his effortless crawl. Then the girl dropped her feet to the bottom and stood panting and smiling.
"No wonder you tire with that load of wet goods!" said Mark, eyeing the billowing suit distastefully. "It isn't the suit. I don't do much better without it."
"Let's see your stroke," he commanded.
The girl dutifully obeyed; she struggled a dozen yards with desperate efforts.
"Wrong! All wrong! Even for the breast stroke. Here!" He seized her by the belt of the questionable suit. "Now—draw your knees way up, and kick outwards and backwards. That's some better—now try."
He released his support; instantly the black head disappeared beneath the surface. She rose choking and sputtering; with a frantic flailing of arms. Mark placed her on her feet, and she looked into his face and laughed.
It was the first time he had really heard her laugh; it was low and soft, like her singing voice, and it seemed to Mark quite the most wonderful sound in the world. He seized her impulsively, and planted a quick, wet kiss on her equally moist lips.
In a moment, she struggled free.
"Loring!" she gasped, with a rapid glance at the beachcomber, who still eyed the two of them casually from his seat against his tree.
"Oh, Loring! " said Mark disgustedly. "As if he counted for anything at all!"
"Anyway, I'm tired," she said with a little smile. "I'll watch you from the beach."
CHAPTER XXVI
Mark plunged into the green combers, moving with great, flashing strokes out toward the open sea. He rose and fell with the rise and fall of the waters; riding high up on the crest, and sliding smoothly into the trough. He reveled in his strength, in the cool, salty feel of the sea, in the swift slurring of waters past his face. Far out he paused, looking back at the remote beach.
Vanya was standing on tiptoe at the very edge of the surf, her upraised arm glistening in the sun. A faint cry drifted thin and elusive on the wind.
"Mark! Mark! Come back!"
He turned and raced back through the great rollers. Now the waves came from behind; they lifted him high up for a moment, carried him on, and then slid rapidly away toward the white beach. He plunged on, slipping through the water as smoothly as an otter.
In the surf he dropped his feet, found bottom, and ran in toward Vanya, standing knee-deep in the water. Her face was white, troubled; he thought he saw the flash of tears.
"What's the matter? What's wrong?" he cried, as he emerged dripping. The girl ran to meet him, and, regardless of the nonchalant Loring in the distance, threw herself into his arms.
"What happened?" he repeated.
"You went out so far!" she choked. "I could hardly see you. Every wave hid your head, and I couldn't see it until the next one."
"Good Lord, girl!" he exclaimed. "Is that all? I can swim!"
"I know it—now," she said, throwing back her head and smiling up at him. "I've never seen anything more beautiful, more graceful! It was thrilling until—until I began to get frightened."
They waded hack to the warmth and dryness of the beach, rounding the curve, and seating themselves on the bole of the giant windfall.
"Were you really so worried?" he asked.
"Mark! Do you think I lied that day?"
"When you said you loved me? No."
"I've never lied to you. I wish you'd believe that, but I suppose you couldn't, and still be—"
"And still be what?"
"And still be Mark Talbot! I know you doubt the story I told you, but it's true."
"If I could believe that," he said fiercely, "if I could believe that—and also that you've held nothing back—not even this thing could stand me back!"
"Not even what thing, Mark?"
"Your acceptance of that damnable proposition I made you! That speaks for itself, doesn't it?"
"Mark—!"
"Don't make it worse by explanations, Vanya! Didn't you know I offered that as a test? I'd have seen you into America all the more gladly had you refused!"
"Good Heaven, Mark, but you're cruel sometimes." she murmured as she dropped to the sand.
The voices of shouting men greeted them as they approached the bay. A strange vessel lay at anchor in the curve of the inlet.
AN OFFER
"What a climate!" muttered Mark, mopping his streaming forehead. "All it needs is a few devils with pitchforks, blowing up the flames."
"Everything's here but the pitchforks, then," agreed Loring, gazing around the bar-room, and pounding his half-drained glass on the table. "There are the devils." He indicated the crew of the pearler Caroline, fresh from the islands that named her, who sat in the humid, smoke-filled, airless room.
"It's a burning shame," said Mark, "to expect those girls to work in this heat!”
"Those girls? You mean Vanya."
"Of course I mean Vanya! The others can steam themselves like clams for all of me." He stared moodily at Vanya's co-performers, now each sitting at a table with a seamen. Loring called lustily for another drink from the scowling Hong.
"Well, it can't be helped," sighed the beachcomber. "How'd you like my technique?"
"On the piano? You're pretty good. I'd appreciate it more except for this heat."
He wiped his face with a handkerchief grown almost wringing wet in service.
"One gets accustomed to it," said Loring indifferently. He caught a gesture from Shene. "Here goes again! Our friend the lady is about to appear."
He slid over to the piano, and again struck those surprisingly melodious chords. Mark watched Vanya step from the door behind Loring to the small raised platform; she stood hardly half a dozen feel; from his table, wearing the long black evening gown affair she had worn for the delectation of the Ellice's crew. Something about her appearance displeased Mark; her make-up was different, her cheeks an enameled pink, a
nd her lips a lacquered red. She met his eye with a faint smile as she began to sing.
"Mean to Me!" she sang—a song Mark had heard back in the States. She caught his eye in the midst of it, flashed him a tiny smile of implication, and continued. Mark grinned to himself at her look; he didn't blame her at all.
After her encore, Vanya ignored as usual the crowd's invitations. She came gravely over to Mark's table amid a roar of appreciation from the Caroline's crew; her action was evidently expected! Loring reached over and removed the remains of his drink; he set the glass beside him on the piano, and retained his seat, playing a soft, unobtrusive melody. Vanya looked tired, weary, beneath the false glow of her make-up.
"You'd look better," observed Mark, "in just ordinary rouge and lipstick, or with nothing on your face at all. I don't fancy that I grease-paint, or whatever it is you I have on!"
"Ordinary rouge and lipstick I won't stand this weather," replied the girl. "And besides, I make up to satisfy the customers—not you!"
"I'm a customer," stressed Mark. "The only way to satisfy me would be to discontinue the balance of tonight's performance. I don't see how you can stand it. I suffer enough just sitting here."
"It is bad," said Vanya, wearily.
"I'm minded to speak to Shene."
"You'll do nothing of the sort. I've gone on in worse weather than this.
“But Vanya! It's worth it to me to pay him what this crowd would I spend. I'll buy him off."
"You will not! Do you think I'd take charity from you? I can manage without that." One of the other girls was on the platform; Mark looked at her face, I beaded with perspiration from the effort of her dance.
"Vanya, as a particular favor, will you let me try?" he said softly. "My reasons are selfish! I'd feel a great deal happier if you would." The girl shook her head.
"Don't think I'm unappreciative," I she said, "but I can't let you."
Nor did she. Shortly thereafter she disappeared into the room that served as a dressing room, and returned in her costume of crimson blouse and tiny black velvet shorts.
The Lost Master - The Collected Works Page 100
