“She gave you no message? Did she read the letter?”
The boy shook his head mournfully. From constant living with his master in lonely places he had an intuitive knowledge of the workings of his mind, and his own impressionable nature was wont to adapt itself accordingly.
“How did she look?”
“Her eyes were big and dark, Signore.”
With that presentment of her he was obliged to be content. He sent Jacopo to take berths for Singapore, in the superstition, that if he prepared for the worst the best might come, the same feeling that makes a man take an umbrella out upon a fine day. No day that he had ever spent was quite as terrible as that day of waiting. He kept buying things for tropical use, telling himself that everything was settled, that she could not come, but he expected her all the time. The day dragged to its end.
She did not come.
On Saturday morning he drank brandy for breakfast—smoking was no use, but brandy was a good thing. The last year had been of use to him, he did not take trouble so resentfully. He was quiet under it, it seemed more a matter of course.
The brown was fading out of his face, he was hollow-eyed, and moved like a man recovering from an illness. He said to the hotel porter, a man who remembered him as a boy—
“If a lady calls for me or sends a message, a young lady with dark hair and eyes, that is the name, but perhaps she won’t give a name,” and he handed him a piece of paper with Jocelyn’s name written on it—“Wire to me at Plymouth, Malta, Brindisi. I am going by the steamship Rangoon, there are written directions.” He gave the man a ten-pound note. “It’s important.”
The man’s countenance remained unmoved, but he was touched.