Well—that would mean one more scar on the face of the Japanese.
The other scar, how had Maku come by that? Perhaps in some battle with the Russians in Manchuria. He seemed to be little more than a boy, but then, one never could guess the age of a Japanese, and for that matter, Orme had more than once been told that the Japanese had begun to impress very young soldiers long before the battle of Mukden.
While making these observations, Orme had drawn his hat lower over his eyes. He hoped to escape recognition, for this opportunity to track Maku to his destination was not to be missed. He also placed himself in such a position on the platform that his own face was partly concealed by the cross-bars which protected the windows at the end of the car.
In his favor was the fact that Maku would not expect to see him. Doubtless the Japanese was more concerned with his aching head than with any suspicion of pursuit, though his somewhat indeterminate profile, as visible to Orme, gave no indication of any feeling at all. So Orme stood where he could watch without seeming to watch, and puzzled over the problem of following Maku from the car without attracting attention.
The refusal of the other Japanese to accept the girl’s offer of money for the papers had given Orme a new idea of the importance of the quest. Maku and his friend must be Japanese government agents—just as Poritol and Alcatrante were unquestionably acting for their government. This, at least, was the most probable explanation that entered Orme’s mind. The syndicate, then,—or concession, or whatever it was—must be of genuine international significance.
Though Orme continued to smother his curious questionings as to the meaning of the secret, he could not ignore his general surmises. To put his confidence in the girl—to act for her and for her alone—that was enough for him; but it added to his happiness to think that she might be leading him into an affair which was greater than any mere tangle of private interests. He knew too, that, upon the mesh of private interests, public interests are usually woven. The activity of a Russian syndicate in Korea had been the more or less direct cause of the Russo-Japanese War; the activity of rival American syndicates in Venezuela had been, but a few years before, productive of serious international complications. In the present instance, both South Americans and Japanese were interested. But Orme knew in his soul that there could be nothing unworthy in any action in which the girl took part. She would not only do nothing unworthy; she would understand the situation clearly enough to know whether the course which offered itself to her was worthy or not.
In events such as she had that night faced with him, any other girl Orme had ever met would have shown moments of weakness, impatience, or fear. But to her belonged a calm which came from a clear perception of the comparative unimportance of petty incident. She was strong, not as a man is strong, but in the way a woman should be strong.
The blood went to his cheeks as he remembered how tenderly he had spoken to her in the boat, and how plain he had made his desire for her. What should he call his feeling? Did love come to men as suddenly as this? She had not rebuked him—there was that much to be thankful for; and she must have known that his words were as involuntary as his action in touching her shoulder with his hand.
But how could she have rebuked him? She was, in a way, indebted to him. The thought troubled him. Had he unintentionally taken advantage of her gratitude by showing affection when she wished no more than comradeship? And had she gently said nothing, because he had done something for her? If her patience with him were thus to be explained, it must have been based upon her recognition of his unconsciousness.
Still, the more he pondered, the more clearly he saw that she was not a girl who, under the spell of friendly good will, would permit a false situation to exist. Her sincerity was too deep for such a glossing of fact. He dared assume, then, that her sympathy with him went even so far as to accept his attitude when it was a shade more than friendly.