“That is a very old coat,” he said softly. “Hundreds of years—very, very old.”
His face took on a strange, removed look. “It will be difficult to find—I am afraid.”
He spoke the words with a clear, clipping sound, and looked out to the west, steadying himself to the motion of the boat.
“There are not many chances of finding it,” he said at last with grave accent. “But I will help you—if I can.”
“We are depending on you,” said Richard More.
The man bowed and walked away.
After that Eleanor saw him often, mingling with the different groups of Chinamen on the deck and talking and laughing with easy familiarity.
“He is making inquiries,” said Richard. “He tells me there are people on board from nearly every province in China. He may find a clew before we leave the boat.”
It might have been only imagination on Eleanor’s part that the groups of Chinamen began to regard her with interest. As they passed her chair, she would fancy for a moment she caught a gleam in the opaque black eyes.... Then, as she looked, it was gone.... A group of them, by the ship’s rail, talking in clear staccato tones, would give her a sudden sense that she was closely concerned in what they were saying. But when she looked, the stolid faces were as impassive as the long black queues depending from each round hat almost to the ship’s deck and responding in oblique black lines to the attraction of gravity—as the boat moved up and down.... After a time she ceased to think of them. She sat in her chair, day after day, with half-closed eyes, watching the faces drift past and the water beyond the ship’s rail rise and fall.