The Ragged Edge Part 15

CHAPTER XII

The doctor s.h.i.+fted his books and magazines to the crook of his elbow. He had done this a dozen times on the way from his office.

Books were always sliding and slipping, clumsy objects to hold.

Looking at this girl, a sense of failure swept over him. He had not been successful as the world counted success; the fat bank-account, the filled waiting room of which he had once dreamed, had never materialized except in the smoke of his evening pipe.

And yet he knew that his skill was equal to that of any fas.h.i.+onable pract.i.tioner in Hong-Kong. He wasn't quite hard enough to win worldly success; that was his fault. Anybody in pain had only to call to him. So, here he was, on the last lap of middle age, in China, having missed all the thrills in life except one--the war against Death. It rather astonished him. He hadn't followed this angle of thought in ten years: what he might have been, with a little shrewd selfishness. This extraordinary child had opened up an old channel through which it was no longer safe to cruise. She was like an angel with one wing. The simile started a laugh in his throat.

"Why do you laugh?" she asked gravely.

"At a thought. Of you--an angel with one wing."

"Meaning that I don't belong anywhere, in heaven or on earth?"

"Meaning that you must cut off the wing or grow another to mate it.

Let's go up and see how the patient is doing. Wu may have news for us. We'll get those books into your room first. And I'll have supper with you."

"If only...." But she did not complete the thought aloud. If only this man had been her father! The world would have meant nothing; the island would have been wide enough.

"You were saying--?"

"I started to say something; that is all."

"By the way, did you read those stories?"

"Yes."

"Worth anything?"

"I don't know."

"Silly love stories?"

"No; love wasn't the theme. Supposing you take them and read them?

You might be able to tell me why I felt disappointed."

"All right. I'll take them back with me. Probably he has something to say and can't say it, or he writes well about nothing."

"Do you believe his failure caused...."

"What?" he barked. But he did not follow on with the thought. There was no need of sowing suspicion when he wasn't really certain there were grounds for it. "Well, you never can tell," he continued, lamely. "These writer chaps are queer birds."

"Queer birds."

He laughed and followed her into the hotel. "More slang," he said.

"I'll have to set you right on that, too."

"I have heard sailors use words like that, but I never knew what they meant."

Sailors, he thought; and most of them the dregs of the South Seas, casting their evil glances at this exquisite creature and trying to smirch with innuendo the crystal clearness of her mind. Perhaps there were experiences she would never confide to any man. Sudden indignation boiled up in him. The father was a madman. It did not matter that he wore the cloth; something was wrong with him. He hadn't played fair.

"Remember; we must keep the young fellow's thoughts away from himself. Tell him about the island, the coconut dance, the wooden tom-toms; read to him."

"What made him buy that sing-song girl?" Regarding this, Ruth had ideas of her own, but she wanted the doctor's point of view.

"Maybe he realized that he was slipping fast and thought a fine action might give him a hand-hold on life again. You tell me he didn't like the stuff."

"He shuddered when he drank."

"Well, that's a hopeful sign. I'll test him out later; see if there is any craving. Give me the books. I'll put them in your room; then we'll have a look-see."

The patient was asleep. According to Wu, the young man had not opened his eyes once during the afternoon.

So Ruth returned to her room and sorted the books and magazines the doctor had loaned her, inspected the t.i.tles and searched for pictures. And thus it was that she came upon a book of Stevenson's verse--her first adventure into poetry. The hymnal lyrics had never stirred her; she had memorized and sung them parrot-wise. But here was new music, tender and kindly and whimsical, that first roved to and fro in the mind and then cuddled up in the heart. Anything that had love in it!

The doctor comprehended that he also had his work cut out. While the girl kept the patient from dwelling upon his misfortunes, whatever these were, he himself would have to keep the girl from brooding over hers. So he made merry at the dinner table, told comic stories, and was astonished at the readiness with which she grasped the comic side of life. His curiosity put itself into a question.

"Old Morgan the trader," she explained, "used to save me _t.i.t-Bits_.

He would read the jokes and ill.u.s.trate them; and after a time I could see the point of a joke without having it explained to me. I believe it amused him. I was a novelty. He was always in a state of semi-intoxication, but he was always gentle with me.

Probably he taught me what a joke was merely to irritate my father; for suddenly Father stopped my going to the store for things and sent our old Kanaka cook instead. She had been to San Francisco, and what I learned about the world was from her. Thank you for the books."

"You were born on the island?"

"I believe so."

"You don't remember your mother?"

"Oh, no; she died when I was very little."

She showed him the locket; and he studied the face. It was equally as beautiful but not quite so fine as the daughter's. He returned the locket without comment.

"Perhaps things would have been different if she had lived."

"No doubt," he replied. "Mine died while I was over here. Perhaps that is why I lost my ambition."

"I am sorry."

"It is life."

There was a pause. "He never let me keep a dog or a cat about the house. But after a time I learned the ways of the parrakeets, and they would come down to me like doves in the stories. I never made any effort to touch them; so by and by they learned to light fearlessly on my arms and shoulders. And what a noise they made!

This is how I used to call them."

She pursed her lips and uttered a whistle, piercingly shrill and high; and instantly she became the object of intense astonishment on the part of the other diners. She was quite oblivious to the sensation she had created.

The picture of her flashed across the doctor's vision magically.

The emerald wings, slashed with scarlet and yellow, wheeling and swooping about her head, there among the wild plantain.

"I never told anybody," she went on. "An audience might have frightened the birds. Only in the suns.h.i.+ne; they would not answer my whistle on cloudy days."