YOU CAN NEVER TELL
By “B. MacArthur”
Very dimly shone the lamps of the rickshaws; very faintly came the tap-tap of the sandals passing to and fro on the Bund. Yokohama was going to sleep, and the great liners in the bay looked dark and ghost-like against the rising moon. The three men sitting on the terrace of the Grand Hotel met here every ninth week. They were captains of three of the liners. All were Englishmen. Blackburn, who commanded a ship owned and manned by Japanese, lit his pipe and gazed out across the harbour, drawing his hand over his brow and hair.
“Same old heat,” he said.
The others nodded.
Bainbridge, a slight little man with fair hair, moved restlessly.
“A week, and we’ll all be at opposite corners again,” he said, “none of them much cooler.”
“Not bad at home now,” mused Villiers, broad and silent man, with the gray eyes of a dreamer. He leaned forward, smiling slightly.
“D’ye know, it’s three years next month since I’ve seen th’ wife. Devil of a life! And I don’t see my way to getting back yet, either. No place for women, the East.”
Bainbridge stared at him uneasily.
“Yes, deuce of a life,” he assented, “but worse for the women, even in England. Always standing on their own legs, as it were, pinching and skimping for a chap they only see once in a couple of years. I say, y’know, it’s rotten bad for them, at best.”
“Quite right,” said Villiers, “and it is an experience that is bound to have its effect. The strong woman will be stronger, the weak woman weaker, and the bad woman—will go under.”
Blackburn smiled.
“Then we are three lucky chaps,” he said, and blew a ring of smoke and looked at it rather sentimentally.
Villiers laughed.
“The queer part about it is the faith they’ve got. It’s that which pulls them through. I believe if I wrote the wife to-night that I’d a Japanese girl in Nagasaki she’d never believe me, though she’s quite sophisticated enough to be cognizant of the prevalence of that sort of thing out here. She takes the attitude that such things might happen—but not to her or hers. It’s rather a potent point of view.”
“It’s an absurd point of view—no offence to you, old chap,” said Bainbridge. “Suppose it was a fact and she had to face it—what would be her attitude?”
“It couldn’t be a fact so long as she felt as she does about it,” answered Villiers; “it is that which insures her being quite right in her belief.”
“Oh, rot!” said Bainbridge. “You’re an idealist.” He took a deep drink from his tall glass. “I’ll bet you if all three of us wrote home to-night in the light of remorseful confession every one of us would receive replies, next mail out, to the same effect.”
“There’s just one way to prove that,” said Villiers, “and that’s to write.”
“Done!” said Bainbridge.
“Hold on, old chaps!” Blackburn knocked out the ashes from his pipe. “D’ye know you’re about to play a devilish risky game? Shouldn’t care to enter it myself. Luck to you, however, if you must. But both of you are taking too much for granted.”
“You hold the stakes, then,” said Villiers complacently. “Next trip we meet here, as per schedule, we’ll have our mail first thing and rendezvous at eight for supper. If we can’t read our letters aloud we can at least describe the attitude taken therein, which is the point under discussion.”
“Very well,” said Blackburn, “but I warn you it’s a silly affair.”
· · · · · · ·
Nine weeks later Blackburn, tying his tie before the mirror in his cabin, felt a curious interest in seeing his two friends as had been arranged at their previous meeting. They would have received their mail from home even as he had received his, but it was with a thrill of satisfaction that he remembered he had not endangered his own or his wife’s happiness in what he considered the mad manner of his friends.
Very promptly, then, and most serene, he appeared on the terrace and seated himself at the usual table to await their arrival.
Bainbridge presently appeared and, after greeting Blackburn, sat down and lit a pipe. They talked spasmodically. A curious tranquillity seemed to have enveloped the little man, which so held Blackburn’s attention that he could think of nothing to say. They sat in silence, Blackburn mentally taking stock of his friend. All his nervousness and cynicism seemed to have left him, and his eyes, usually so furtive, looked very still and deep.
“Wonder why Villiers doesn’t come along,” said Blackburn at last.
Bainbridge nodded.... “I’ll read you my letter now,” he said, and in a lower voice: “By Jove, old chap, I was quite wrong, d’ye know? Never would have believed it possible any one could feel so about a chap like me.”
He laid the letter on the table. “Wonderful thing that,” he said; and Blackburn took it.
“Are you quite sure you want me to read this?” he asked.
“Quite,” replied Bainbridge, “because—because it’s changed things so—for me, you know.”
Blackburn read:
“Dear Lad:
“Something in my heart tells me this horrible thing isn’t true. It can’t be. Such things may happen to people, but somehow I can’t feel it has happened to me and mine. But if it has—and you will begin again because your best nature still cares for me—won’t you begin right now, because I love you and will try to forget. I can’t write more.
“Minnie.”
When Blackburn had finished he folded it very gently and handed it to Bainbridge.
“I congratulate you, old fellow,” he said gravely, and then: “Let’s go up to Villiers’ room and stir him up. He may be snoozing.”
They rose and climbed the stairs to the room Villiers was wont to occupy during his stay in port. The door was unlocked, and after knocking and receiving no reply they entered. It was so dark at first they could see nothing. Blackburn, dimly discerning the bureau, shuffled toward it to light the gas. But before he reached it his foot struck a soft object, and simultaneously a nauseous wave of horror swept over him.
“My God! Light a match,” he said.
Bainbridge did so and, stepping over the prone figure, lit the gas with trembling hands.
Villiers was quite dead. His gun lay by his side, and in a little pool of blood by his right temple a crumpled letter lay, face up.
“Nothing should be touched,” said Blackburn, “until the proper steps have been taken—except——”
Bainbridge stooped and lifted the bloody page.
“Except this,” he said, and, folding it carefully, put it in his wallet.
· · · · · · ·
When, many hours later, Blackburn was aboard his ship, he locked his cabin door, and Bainbridge, who had accompanied him for the purpose, spread out the sheet and read it slowly.
“My Dear Frank:
“Your rather extraordinary epistle has reached me, and I assure you it was quite unnecessary. You surely do not expect me to have lived all these years alone and to have known men as I do without realizing that I could scarcely expect you to live the life of a celibate in the ‘Far East.’ In this strange little game of life we must take our pleasures as they come, and I have taken mine even as I have not prevented you from taking yours. Foolish boy! If you expected me to have hysterics over your self-imposed confession you may be relieved to know that I merely laughed at it. We are all in the same boat, we sinners, so why should one of us cavil at another? Cheer up and don’t take life so seriously.
“Sue.”