"Am I really willing to marry her?" (It was the lift of my eyebrows that suggested the query to Allen, for I did not speak.) "Well, yes, I think I am, if she made that a condition. But I don't think the question is one likely to arise.
"The girl took in the whole thing without giving away by word or look how it impressed her. When I had finished, she coolly suggested that I run along and square matters up with the quarantine people about her and Ratu Lal. She added that she would be obliged if I'd look up her Chinese shawl for her. She also started to speak about her dagger, but changed her mind and said to let that go for the present. As for what I'd been telling her.... Well, perhaps if I could see my way to dropping in again toward evening she might have an answer for me. High and haughty as a Sultana, she was, sitting cross-legged on a mat and pulling away at one of Ratu Lal's big 'hubble-bubbles.'
"I went to the Quarantine Station straightaway, and, in spite of the red tape tangling up a thing of that kind, managed to get them to agree to discharging the girl without anything more than a perfunctory call from a doctor to certify her free of plague. That done, the rest was easy. I told the story—omitting, of course, the girl's attack upon me—at the Police Station, and they agreed not to arrest Ratu Lal as long as the quarantine authorities were satisfied and lodged no complaint against him. They said they were only too glad of a chance to do me a favour. Then I got them to let me have the shawl, and begged them to keep the news of the girl's turning up quiet as long as they could.
"'Squid' Saunders's little diversion that afternoon gave the pressmen something else to take up their minds, and the matter of the missing girl was forgotten, at least for the remainder of my time in Townsville. The fact that she did not drown herself must have leaked out since, but they probably haven't been enough interested in it—now that the hunt has followed me here—to wire it south.
"When I broke away from the official reception committee and dropped in on Rona at the end of the afternoon—impatient enough, I can tell you—she gave no sign that the matter I had come for an answer about was in her mind at all. She grabbed the Chinese shawl out of my hand with a yelp of delight, but almost dissolved in tears when she saw how the embroidery had been smudged and ruffled in her scrambles over trees and walls and ditches the night she escaped from the Quarantine Station. You may remember that it was a big peacock that was embroidered on the shawl—pretty nearly life-size—rather a fine piece of work, it always struck me. Well, ignoring me entirely, she spread that old peacock out over her breast—something in the way she used to display it when she wore the shawl in Kai—and began chirping and crooning and muttering to it like a dove to its nestlings. She would nuzzle into the plumage, smoothing the ruffled feathers with her lips, just like she was the old peacock preening himself. Every little bit of torn floss she would try to put back where it came from.
"Stiff with funk, I sat quiet until she had gone all over the moulting old bird, but when she started in working down from his crest again, I thought it was time to remind her of my presence. I had never sat around waiting on anybody like that before, Whitney; even my old nurse couldn't make me do it. So I cut in and told her that I had arranged things at the Quarantine Station—that she wouldn't need to go there again; also that old Ratu Lal need not worry any longer about a visit from the Police. Incidentally, I mentioned that I was making him a present of ten pounds to show my appreciation of his consideration in not claiming the reward offered for her.
"She took no notice of anything I said. Just went on crooning and preening and stroking down the ruffled feathers, giving a little sob every now and then as she came to a place where they were badly mussed up. Then I went off on another tack, saying that I knew of a shop in the town that carried Chinese embroideries, and suggesting it was possible a skilled needle-worker might be found there competent to undertake the restoration of the bird's damaged plumage. She deigned to cock up an ear to listen to that, but her only reply was a disconsolate shake of the head, as though anything like proper restoration was a matter beyond all hope.
"That quieted me for a while, but after twirling my thumbs through ten or fifteen minutes more nuzzling and crooning, my patience gave out. I jumped up to the accompaniment of a good lively string of oaths, and asked her point-blank if she had made up her mind about the matter we had been speaking of in the morning. She broke into a ripple of smiles at that, and cooed sweetly: 'Ye-es, I think 'bout that plenty, "Slant."' Then she slipped into voluble Malay and laid down a perfectly simple and direct proposal, on the fulfilment of the conditions of which she was willing to return to the Islands with me. It was not what I had expected,—not what anyone would have dreamed of expecting under the circumstances; yet ridiculously easy of fulfilment in the event a certain third party fell in with the idea. That third party is you, Whitney. That's the main thing I have come to see you about. Everything is up to you now. Perhaps that will make it easier for you to understand why I rattled on for an hour or more in the hope of putting myself right with you about Bell. I've never tried to justify myself with any living man before, and probably will never do it again. But it had to be done this time, Whitney, and I hope I've been successful."
My nod might have meant almost anything, but I was not unwilling that Allen should interpret it in his favour. As a matter of fact, he had convinced me wholly that—after the abortive attempt at drugging in Kai—he had played straight with Bell. As for Rona—well, if he was also ready to play straight with her (and he had just about convinced me on that point, too), what was it to me? If she could forget Bell so easily, it was her own affair. If Allen were trying to carry her off against her will—that would be a different matter of course. But he was not. Plainly it was the girl herself who held the whip hand. The whole thing was a bit obscure yet, but what Allen had still to say might do something to clear it up. Without committing myself by more than that one nod, I waited for him to go on.