“He has gone to Italy. He sailed yesterday,” said Tab, and thereupon the girl’s interest in Rex Lander seemed to suffer eclipse.
“I should like to have had Trasmere’s real story,” said Tab, “he must have lived an interesting life. It is rather curious that we found nothing in the house reminiscent of his Chinese experience but a small lacquer box, which was empty. The Chinese fascinate me.”
“Do they?” she looked at him quickly, “they fascinate me in a way by their kindness.”
“You know them; have you lived in China?”
She shook her head.
“I know one or two,” she said, and paused as though she were considering whether it was advisable to say any more. “When I first came to town from service—”
He gaped at her.
“I don’t quite get that—by ‘service’ what do you mean? You don’t mean domestic service—you weren’t a cook or anything?” he asked jocularly, and to his amazement she nodded.
“I was a sort of tweeny maid: peeled potatoes and washed dishes,” she said calmly, “I was only thirteen at the time. But that is another story, as Mr. Kipling says. At this age, and before I went to school, I met a Chinaman whose son was very ill. He lodged in the house where I was staying. The landlady wasn’t a very humane sort of person, and being Chinese, she thought the poor little boy had some mysterious Eastern disease which she would ‘catch.’ I nursed him, in a way,” she said apologetically, but Tab knew that the apology was not for her condescension, but for her lack of nursing skill. “The father was very poor then, a waiter in a native restaurant, but he was ever so grateful. Quite an extraordinary man—I have seen him since.”
“And the child?”