Adjusting the focus Barbara looked. A man in naval uniform who had boarded the ship at Quarantine was pointing out the yacht to a passenger, and Barbara caught crisp bits of sentences: "You see the patches of green?—they're decorations for the Squadron that's due to-morrow. Look just beyond them. Prettiest craft I've ever seen east of the Straits.... Came in this morning. Owner's in Nara now, doing the temples.... Has a younger brother who's been out here for a year, going the pace.... They won't let private yachts lie any closer in or they'd go high and dry on empty champagne bottles."
Barbara was feeling a strange sensation of familiarity. Puzzled, she withdrew her gaze, then looked once more.
Suddenly she dropped the glass with a startled exclamation. "What are you going to do with that man?"—her uncle's query seemed to echo satirically about her. For the white yacht was Austen Ware's, and there, on the gleaming bows, in polished golden letters, was the name
BARBARA
CHAPTER II
"THE ROOST"
The day had been sluggish with the promise of summer, but the failing afternoon had brought a soft suspiration from the broad bosom of the Pacific laden with a refreshing coolness. Along the Bund, however, there was little stir. A few blocks away the foreign dive-quarter was drowsing, and only a single samisen twanged in Hep Goon's saloon, where sailors of a dozen nationalities spent their wages while in port. At the curbing, under the telegraph poles, the chattering rick'sha coolies squatted, playing Go with flat stones on a square scratched with a pointed stick in the hard, beaten ground. On the spotless mats behind their paper shoji the curio-merchants sat on their gaudy wadded cushions, while, over the glowing fire-bowls of charcoal in the inner rooms, their wives cooked the rice for the early evening meal. The office of the Grand Hotel was quiet; only a handful of loungers gossiped at the bar, and the last young lady tourist had finished her flirtation on the terrace and retired to the comfort of a stayless kimono. In the deep foliage of the "Bluff" the slanting sunlight caught and quivered till the green mole seemed a mighty beryl, and in its hedge-shaded lanes, dreamy as those of an English village, the clear air was pungent with tropic blooms.
On one of these fragrant byways, its front looking out across the bay, stood a small bungalow which bore over its gateway the dubious appellation "The Roost." From its enclosed piazza, over which a wistaria vine hung pale pendants, a twisted stair led to the roof, half of which was flat. This space was surrounded by a balustrade and shaded by a rounded gaily striped awning. From this airy retreat the water, far below, looked like a violet shawl edged with shimmering quicksilver and embroidered with fairy fishing junk and sampan; and the subdued voices of the street mingled, vague and undefined, with a rich dank smell of foliage, that moved silently, heavy with the odor of plum-blossoms, a gliding ghost of perfume. Thin blue-and-white Tientsin rugs and green wicker settees gave an impression of coolness and comfort; a pair of ornate temple brasses gleamed on a smoking-stand, and a rich Satsuma bowl did duty for a tobacco jar.
Under the striped awning three men were grouped about a miniature roulette table; a fourth, middle-aged and of huge bulk, with a cynical, Semitic face, from a wide arm-chair was lazily peering through the fleecy curdle of a Turkish cigarette. A fifth stood leaning against the balustrade, watching.