The Ragged Edge Part 8

Prudence felt the hands stiffen oddly; and again the thought came to her that perhaps this poor child's father had once been, perhaps still was, in the same category as this Taber.

"It's a fine idea, my child, but you mustn't do it. Even if he were an old friend, you couldn't afford to do it. But a total stranger, a man you never saw twenty-four hours ago! It can't be thought of.

It isn't your duty."

"I feel bewildered," said Ruth. "Is it wrong, then, to surrender to good impulses?"

"In the present instance, yes. Can't I make you understand? Perhaps it sounds cruel to you; but we women often have to be cruel defensively. You don't want people to snub you later. This isn't your island, child; it's the great world."

"So I perceive," said Ruth, withdrawing her hands. "He is all alone. Without care he will die."

"But, goodness me, the hotel will take care of him! Why not? They sold him the poison. Besides, I have my doubts that he is so very sick. Probably he will come around to-morrow and begin all over again. You're alone, too, child. I'm trying to make you see the worldly point of view, which always inclines toward the evil side of things."

"I have promised. After all, why should I care what strangers think?" Ruth asked with sudden heat. "Is there no charity? Isn't it understood?"

"Of course it is! In the present instance I can offer it and you can't, or shouldn't. There are unwritten laws governing human conduct. Who invented them? n.o.body knows. But woe to those who disregard them! Of course, basically it is all wrong; and sometimes G.o.d must laugh at our ideas of rect.i.tude. But to live at peace with your neighbour...."

Ruth brushed her eyes with one hand and with the other signed for the spinster to stop. "No more, please! I am bewildered enough. I understand nothing of what you say. I only know that it is right to do what I do."

"Well," said Sister Prudence, "remember, I tried to save you some future heartaches. G.o.d bless you, anyhow!" she added, with a spontaneity which surprised Sister Angelina into uttering an individual gasp. "Good-bye!"

For a moment Ruth was tempted to fling herself against the withered bosom; but long since she had learned repression. She remained stonily in the middle of the hallway until the spinsters' door shut them from view ... for ever.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Distinctive Pictures Corporation. The Ragged Edge._ A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]

CHAPTER VIII

Slowly Ruth entered her own room. She opened her suitcase--new and smelling strongly of leather--and took out of it a book, dogeared and precariously held together, bound in faded blue cloth and bearing the inscription: The Universal Handbook. Herein was the sum of human knowledge in essence.

In the beginning it was a dictionary. Words were given with their original meaning, without their ramifications. If you were a poet in need of rhymes, you had only to turn to a certain page. Or, if you were about to embark upon a nautical career, here was all the information required. It also told you how to write on all occasions, how to take out a patent, how to doctor a horse, and who Achates was. You could, if you were ambitious to round out your education, memorize certain popular foreign phrases.

But beyond "amicable agreement in which mutual concessions are made," the word "compromise" was as blank as the Canton wall at night. There were words, then, that ran on indefinitely, with reversals? Here they meant one thing; there, the exact opposite. To be sure, Ruth had dimly been aware of this; but now for the first time she was made painfully conscious of it. Mutual concessions!--and then to turn it around so that it suggested that an act of kindness might be interpreted as moral obloquy!

Walls; queer, invisible walls that receded whenever she reached out, but that still remained between her and what she sought. The wall of the sky, the wall of the horizon, the wall behind which each human being hid--the wall behind which she herself was hiding!

If only her mother had lived, her darling mother!

Presently the unhappy puzzlement left her face; and an inward glow began to lighten it. The curtain before one mystery was torn aside, and she saw in reality what lay behind the impulse that had led her into the young man's room. Somebody to whom she would be necessary, who for days would have to depend upon her for the needs of life.

An inarticulate instinct which now found expression. Upon what this instinct was based she could not say; she was conscious only of its insistence. Briefly explained, she was as the child who discards the rag baby for the living one. Spurlock was no longer a man before this instinct; he was a child in trouble.

Her cogitations were dissipated by a knock on the door. The visitor was the hotel manager, who respectfully announced that the doctor was ready for her. So Ruth took another step toward her destination, which we in our vanity call destiny.

"Will he live?" asked Ruth.

"Thanks to you," said the doctor. "Without proper medical care, he would have been dead by morning." He smiled at her as he smiled at death, cheerfully.

The doctor's smile is singular; there is no other smile that reaches the same level. It is the immediate inspiration of confidence; it alleviates pain, because we know by that smile that pain is soon to leave us; it becomes the bulwark against our depressive thoughts of death; and it is the promise that we still have a long way to go before we reach the Great Terminal.

In pa.s.sing, why do we fear death? For our sins? Rather, isn't it the tremendous inherent human curiosity to know what is going to happen to-morrow that causes us to wince at the thought of annihilation? A subconscious resentment against the idea of entering darkness while our neighbour will proceed with his petty affairs as usual?

"It's nip and tuck," said the doctor; "but we'll pull him through.

Probably his first serious bout with John Barleycorn. If he had eaten food, this wouldn't have happened. It is not a dissipated face."

"No; it is only--what shall I say?--troubled. The ragged edge."

"Yes. This is also the ragged edge of the world, too. It is the bottom of the cup, where all the dregs appear to settle. But this chap is good wine yet. We'll have him on his way before many days.

But ... he must want to live in order that the inclination to repeat this incident may not recur. The manager tells me that you are an American. So am I. For ten years I've been trying to go home, but my conscience will not permit me, I hate the Orient. It drives one mad at times. Superst.i.tion--you knock into it whichever way you turn. The Oriental accepts my medicines kowtowing, and when my back is turned, chucks the stuff out of the window and burns joss-sticks. I hate this part of the world."

"So do I," replied Ruth.

"You have lived over here?"--astonished.

"I was born in the South Seas and I am on my way to America, to an aunt."

"Well, it's mighty fine of you to break your journey in this fas.h.i.+on--for someone you don't know, a pa.s.ser-by."

He held out his dry hard hand into which she placed hers. The manager had sketched the girl's character, or rather had interpreted it, from the incidents which had happened since dinner.

"You will find her new." New? That did not describe her. Here, indeed, was a type with which he had never until now come into contact--a natural woman. She would be extraordinarily interesting as a metaphysical study. She would be surrendering to all her impulses--particularly the good impulses--many of which society had condemned long since because they entailed too much trouble.

Imagine her, putting herself to all this delay and inconvenience for a young wastrel she did not know and who, the moment he got on his feet, would doubtless pa.s.s out of her life without so much as Thank you! And it was ten to one that she would not comprehend the ingrat.i.tude. To such characters, fine actions are in themselves sufficient.

Perhaps her odd beauty--and that too was natural--stirred these thoughts into being. Ashen blonde, a shade that would never excite the cynical commentary which men applied to certain types of blondes. It would be protective; it would with age turn to silver unnoticeably. A disconcerting gray eye that had a mystifying depth.

In the artificial light her skin had the tint and l.u.s.tre of a yellow pearl. She would be healthy, too, and vigorous. Not the explosive vigour of the north-born, but that which would quietly meet physical hards.h.i.+ps and bear them triumphantly.

All this while he was arranging the medicines on the stand and jotting down his instructions on a chart sheet. He had absorbed her in a single glance, and was now defining her as he worked. After a while he spoke again.

"Our talking will not bother him. He will be some time in this comatose state. Later, there will be fever, after I've got his heart pumping. Now, he must have folks somewhere. I'm going through his pockets. It's only right that his people should know where he is and what has happened to him."

But he searched in vain. Aside from some loose coin and a trunk key, there was nothing in the pockets: no mail, no letter of credit, not even a tailor's label. Immediately he grasped the fact that there was drama here, probably the old drama of the fugitive.

He folded the garments carefully and replaced them on the chair.

"I'm afraid we'll have to dig into his trunk," he said. "There's nothing in his clothes. Perhaps I ought not to; but this isn't a case to fiddle-faddle over. Will you stand by and watch me?"

The contents of the trunk only thickened the fog. Here again the clothes were minus the labels. All the linen was new and stamped with the mark of Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co., British merchants with branches all over the East. At the bottom of the trunk was a large manila envelope, unmarked. The doctor drew out the contents hopefully.

"By George!" he exclaimed. "Ma.n.u.scripts! Why, this chap is a writer, or is trying to be. And will you look! His name neatly cut out from each t.i.tle page. This is clear over my head."

"A novelist?" cried Ruth, thrilling. And yet the secondary emotion was one of suspicion. That a longing of hers should be realized in this strange fas.h.i.+on was difficult to believe: it vaguely suggested something of a trap.

"Or trying to be," answered the doctor. "Evidently he could not destroy these children of his. No doubt they've all been rejected; but he couldn't throw them overboard. I suspect he has a bit of vanity. I'll tell you what. I'll leave these out, and to-morrow you can read them through. Somewhere you may stumble upon a clew to his ident.i.ty. To-morrow I'll wire Cook's and the American Express in Hong-Kong to see if there is any mail. Taber is the name. What is he--English or American?"

"American. What is a Yale man?"

"Did he say he was a Yale man?"

"He and Ah c.u.m were talking...."

"I see. Ah c.u.m is a Yale man and so is this Taber."