CHAPTER XIII
One day Ruth caught the patient's eyes following her about; butthere was no question in the gaze, no interest; so she pretendednot to notice.
"Where am I?" asked Spurlock.
"In Canton."
"How long have I been in bed?"
"A week."
"My coat, please."
"It is folded under your pillow."
"Did I ask for it?"
"Yes. But perhaps you don't know; there was nothing in the pockets.You were probably robbed in Hong-Kong."
"Nothing in the pockets."
"You see, we didn't know but you might die; and so we had to searchyour belongings for the address of your people."
"I have no people--anybody who would care."
She kindled with sympathy. He was all alone, too. Nobody who cared.
Ruth was inflammable; she would always be flaring up swiftly, inpity, in tenderness, in anger; she would always be answeringimpulses, without seeking to weigh or to analyse them. She wasemerging from the primordial as Spurlock was declining toward it.She was on the rim of civilization, entering, as Spurlock was onthe rim, preparing to make his exit. Two souls in travail; oneinspired by fresh hopes, the other, by fresh despairs. Both of themwould be committing novel and unforgettable acts.
"How long shall I be here?" he asked.
"That depends upon you. Not very long, if you want to get well."
"Are you a nurse?"
"Yes. Don't ask any more questions. Wait a little; rest."
There was a pause. Ruth flashed in and out of the sunshine; and hetook note of the radiant nimbus above her head each time thesunshine touched her hair.
"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
"The first day you came. Don't you remember? There were four of us,and we went touring in the city."
"As in a dream." There was another pause. "Was I out of my head?"
"Yes."
"What did I say?"
"Only one word," she said, offering her first white lie.
"What was it?" He was insistent.
"You repeated the word '_Fool_' over and over."
"Nothing else?"
"No. Now, no more questions, or I shall be forced to leave theroom."
"I promise to ask no more."
"Would you like to have me read to you?"
He did not answer. So she took up Stevenson and began to readaloud. She read beautifully because the fixed form of the poemsignified nothing. She went from period to period exactly as shewould have read prose; so that sense and music were equallybalanced. She read for half an hour, then closed the book becauseSpurlock appeared to have fallen asleep. But he was wide awake.
"What poet was that?"
"Stevenson." Ruth had read from page to page in "The Child's Gardenof Verse," generally unfamiliar to the admirers of Stevenson. Ofcourse Ruth was not aware that in this same volume there werelyrics known the world over.
Immediately Spurlock began to chant one of these.
"'Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will.'"
"'This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea. And the hunter home from the hill.'"
"What is that?" she asked. Something in his tone pinched her heart."Did you write it?"
"No. You will find it somewhere in that book. Ah, if I had writtenthat!"
"Don't you want to live?"
"I don't know; I really don't know."
"But you are young!" It was a protest, almost vehement. Sheremembered the doctor's warning that the real battle would beginwhen the patient recovered consciousness. "You have all the worldbefore you."
"Rather behind me;" and he spoke no more that morning.
Throughout the afternoon, while the doctor was giving her the firstlesson out of his profound knowledge of life, her interest wouldbreak away continually, despite her honest efforts to pin it downto the facts so patiently elucidated for her. Recurrently sheheard: "I don't know; I really don't know." It was curiously likethe intermittent murmur of the surf, those weird Sundays, when herfather paused for breath to launch additional damnation for thosewho disobeyed the Word. "I don't know; I really don't know."
Her ear caught much of the lesson, and many things she stored away;but often what she heard was sound without sense. Still, her facenever betrayed this distraction. And what was singular she did notrecount to the doctor that morning's adventure. Why? If she had putthe query to herself, she could not have answered it. It was in nosense confessional; it was a state of mind in the patient thedoctor had already anticipated. Yet she held her tongue.
As for the doctor, he found a pleasure in this service that wouldhave puzzled him had he paused to analyse it. There was scantsocial life on the Sha-mien aside from masculine foregatherings,little that interested him. He took his social pleasures once ayear in Hong-Kong, after Easter. He saw, without any particularregret, that this year he would have to forego the junket; butthere would be ample compensation in the study of these queeryoungsters. Besides, by the time they were off his hands, oldMcClintock would be dropping in to have his liver renovated.
All at once he recollected the fact that McClintock's copraplantation was down that way, somewhere in the South Seas; had anisland of his own. Perhaps he had heard of this Enschede. Mac--theold gossip--knew about everything going on in that part of theworld; and if Enschede was anything up to the picture the girl haddrawn, McClintock would have heard of him, naturally. He mightsolve the riddle. All of which proves that the doctor also had hismoments of distraction, with this difference: he was not distractedfrom his subject matter.
"So endeth the first lesson," he said. "Suppose we go and have tea?I'd like to take you to a teahouse I know, but we'll go to theVictoria instead. I must practise what I preach."
"I should be unafraid to go anywhere with you."
"Lord, that's just the lesson I've been expounding! It isn't aquestion of fear; it's one of propriety."
"I'll never understand."
"You don't have to. I'll tell you what. I'll write out certainrules of conduct, and then you'll never be in doubt."
She laughed; and it was pleasant laughter in his ears. If only thischild were his: what good times they would have together! Thethought passed on, but it left a little ache in his heart.
"Why do you laugh?" he asked.
"All that you have been telling me, our old Kanaka cook summed upin a phrase."
"What was it?"
"Never glance sideways at a man.".
"The whole thing in a nutshell!"
"Are there no men a woman may trust absolutely?"
"Hang it, that isn't it. Of course there are, millions of them.It's public opinion. We all have to kow-tow to that."
"Who made such a law?"
"This world is governed by minorities--in politics, in religion, insociety. Majorities, right or wrong, dare not revolt. Footprints,and we have to toddle along in them, willy-nilly; and those whohave the courage to step outside the appointed path are calledpariahs!"
"I'm afraid I shall not like this world very much. It is puttingall my dreams out of joint."
"Never let the unknown edge in upon your courage. The world is likea peppery horse. If he senses fear in the touch of your hand, he'llgive you trouble."
"It's all so big and aloof. It isn't friendly as I thought it wouldbe. I don't know; I really don't know," she found herselfrepeating.
He drew her away from this thought. "I read those stories."
"Are they good?"
"He can write; but he hasn't found anything real to write about. Hehasn't found himself, as they say. He's rewriting Poe and DeMaupassant; and that stuff was good only when Poe and De Maupassantwrote it."
"How do you spell the last name?"
He spelt it. He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a faint shudderstir her shoulders. "Not the sort of stories young ladi
es shouldread. Poe is all right, if you don't mind nightmares. But DeMaupassant--sheer off! Stick to Dickens and Thackeray and Hugo.Before you go I'll give you a list of books to read."
"There are bad stories, then, just as there are bad people?"
"Yes. Sewn on that button yet?"
"I've been afraid to take the coat from under the pillow."
"Funny, about that coat. You told him there wasn't anything in thepockets?"
"Yes."
"How did he take it?"
"He did not seem to care."
"There you are, just as I said. We've got to get him to care. We'vegot to make him take up the harp of life and go twanging it again.That's the job. He's young and sound. Of course, there'll be a fewkinks to straighten out. He's passed through some rough mentaltorture. But one of these days everything will click back intoplace. Great sport, eh? To haul them back from the ragged edge.Wouldn't it be fun to see his name on a book-cover some day? He'llgo strutting up and down without ever dreaming he owed the wholeshot to us. That would be fun, eh?"
"I wonder if you know how kind you are? You are like somebody outof a book."
"There, now! You mustn't get mixed. You mustn't go by what you readso much as by what you see and hear. You must remember, you've justbegun to read; you haven't any comparisons. You mustn't go dressingup Tom, Dick, and Harry in Henry Esmond's ruffles. What you want todo is to imagine every woman a Becky Sharp and every man a RawdonCrawley."
"I know what is good," she replied.
"Yes; but what is good isn't always proper. And so, here we are,right back from where we started. But no more of that. Let's talkof this chap. There's good stuff in him, if one could find the wayto dig it out. But pathologically, he is still on the edge. Unlesswe can get some optimism into him, he'll probably start this allover again when he gets on his feet. That's the way it goes. Butbetween us, we'll have him writing books some day. That's one ofthe troubles with young folks: they take themselves so seriously.He probably imagines himself to be a thousand times worse off thanhe actually is. Youth finds it pleasant sometimes to be melancholy.Disappointed puppy-love, and all that."
"Puppy-love."
"A young fellow who thinks he's in love, when he has only beenreading too much."
"Do girls have puppy-love?"
"Land sakes, yes! On the average they are worse than the boys. Aboy can forget his amatory troubles playing baseball; but a girlcan't find any particular distraction in doing fancy work. Do youknow, I envy you. All the world before you, all the ologies. Whatan adventure! Of course, you'll bark your shins here and there andhit your funnybone; but the newness of everything will be somethingof a compensation. All right. Let's get one idea into our heads. Weare going to have this chap writing books one of these days."
Ideas are never born; they are suggested; they are planted seeds.Ruth did not reply, but stared past the doctor, her eyes misty. Thedoctor had sown a seed, carelessly. All that he had sown thatafternoon with such infinite care was as nothing compared to thisseed, cast without forethought. Ruth's mind was fertile soil; for along time to come it would be something of a hothouse: green thingswould spring up and blossom overnight. Already the seed of a tenderdream was stirring. The hour for which, presumably, she had beencreated was drawing nigh. For in life there is but one hour: anepic or an idyll: all other hours lead up to and down from it.
"By the way," said the doctor, as he sat down in the dining room ofthe Victoria and ordered tea, "I've been thinking it over."
"What?"
"We'll put those stories back into the trunk and never speak ofthem to him."
"But why not?"
The doctor dallied with his teaspoon. Something about the girl hadsuggested an idea. It would have been the right idea, had Ruth beenother than what she was. First-off, he had decided not to tell herwhat he had found at the bottom of that manila envelope. Now itoccurred to him that to show her the sealed letter would be abetter way. Impressionable, lonely, a deal beyond his analyticalreach, the girl might let her sympathies go beyond those of thenurse. She would be enduing this chap with attributes he did notpossess, clothing him in fictional ruffles. To disillusion her,forthwith.
"I'll tell you why," he said. "At the bottom of that big envelope Ifound this one."
He passed it over; and Ruth read:
To be opened in case of my death and the letter inside forwarded to the address thereon. All my personal effects to be left in charge of the nearest American Consulate.