Eleanor had seen him only at a distance, leaning against the rail and looking out to sea, or rolling a cigarette with slow lingering touch in his yellow hands extending from the wide, silken sleeves.
She fancied, once or twice, that a glance from the oblique eyes rested on her with slow intentness. But when she looked again she saw that the glance was vacant of meaning and that it slipped past her and gazed out along the pathless sea to the west.
“I cannot make him out!” she said to Richard.
“Don’t you like him?” he demanded. “We will exchange him at Shanghai. There are always plenty to be had, I understand. But I thought the man seemed intelligent—and the boat gives us a little chance to get acquainted.”
He looked at her keenly. “We don’t need to keep him, you know.”
She wrinkled her eyes in a little perplexity, gazing at the figure that stood well to the front of the boat.... His back was turned to them and the wind blowing against the boat filled the blue coat and trousers like little balloons. One could fancy the thin yellow legs inside the balloons, holding like grim little steel pipes to the deck. There was a wiry strength in the man and a kind of gripping forcefulness that went oddly with the placid face and slow figure.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said slowly. “I do not dislike him. But he makes me feel as if the world were queer—a little topsy-turvy, I think—almost as if I saw a pine-tree lift its roots out of the ground and go skipping along the grass!” Her husband laughed out. “Kou Ying doesn’t skip much!”
“No.... His soul skips!”
“All the better for us, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps—” Her eyes brooded on the ballooning little figure, anchored to the deck.