CHAPTER XVIII
At dinner Tamea captured a seat beside Dan but gave it up almost instantly to Maisie, giving as a reason her desire to sit beside Mark Mellenger and talk with him. However, she had little to say during the meal. Seemingly she was content to be a good listener.
“Yes, she has been doing some thinking,” Mellenger thought. “And she has decided to disarm active opposition by abandoning direct action and fighting under the rules of the game as Maisie and her kind play it. Preëmpted the seat beside Dan and then abandoned it, just to show her power. She’s half French and a born coquette.”
Suddenly Tamea turned to him as if she had read his thoughts. “I have decided to be all white,” she said.
He noted the fascination of her habit of starting a conversation as if it were the continuation of a discussion, her trick of foreshortening words and ideas.
“I commend your decision, Tamea.”
“Will you help me, Stoneface?” she pleaded with sad wistfulness.
“No!”
She bowed her head understandingly. . . . When the gods rained blows on Tamea, Queen of Riva, she took them standing, and none might know how much they hurt.
“I hate you—but I respect you,” she said in a low voice. “You are a man of resolution, Stoneface.”
“I wonder, my dear, if you will believe me when I assure you it is very difficult for me to act in a manner which causes you to dislike me.”
“Yes, I know that. If you were unkind because you enjoyed unkindness, Dan Pritchard would not love you.”
“Tamea, you have, in full measure, the greatest gift, an understanding heart. In time I shall hope to be understood and—forgiven.”
She frowned. “An understanding head might be a better gift. This evening, when I saw you, I understood why you came without telling anybody. And I thought: ‘Tamea, you are a little fool. Go back to Riva where your mixed blood does not set you apart from your world. Here it is difficult to know happiness!’”
“That was a sensible thought. Why do you not return to Riva? You are terribly out of place here.”
“You, who are all white, cannot understand the combat in my heart, Stoneface. I inherited too much from my father, who was a very wonderful man. I comprehend too quickly, I see too clearly and, I think, sometimes, I shall never be very happy. I am a child of love and I—I—well, I am sorry you will not help me know the ways of your people. I shall learn without aid but just now I would make haste. . . . However, I understand.”
Her long, beautiful hands lay in her lap—her fingers lacing and interlacing nervously; her face was downcast. Mellenger suspected that her long black lashes, seeming to lie on her rose-ivory cheek, effectually concealed a suspicious moistness. There was about her a sad, gentle, Madonna-like wistfulness more poignant than sorrow. Mellenger was touched.
Presently she raised her head and smiled defiantly. “Perhaps I, too, shall be a Stoneface, searching the sea for that which never comes. Tomorrow what shall we do to make happiness for ourselves?”
“Tomorrow I would like to dedicate to the delightful task of making you happy.”
“Then go away. You are not needed here.”
“I will go on Monday with Dan in his car. Until then you must endure me.”
“Thank you, Stoneface. This is a pretty place with none but fashionable people in it, apparently. I shall learn much here so I shall be dutiful and remain here very quietly with Maisie and Mrs. Casson.”
“That will please Dan very much.”
“He will think of me while he is away. He will write to me. Perhaps he will think of Maisie too and write to her. If so—very well. It is not nice to play the cat.”