The tall lady in the handsome native costume and the rope of pearls was the wife of the Governor-General. Julie admired her graceful dignity. Colonel Messenger, the man next to her, was one of the biggest Americans in Manila; he had straightened out the land problem, which the religious orders had engendered.
“He and his family are what you might call typical colonists,” the Governor said. “They have settled down on the soil. That young man at his side is his eldest son—Chad.”
“He scarcely seems as large a structure as his father,” Julie commented, “—but what a fury of dreaming he has in his face! Isn’t he the one Isabel told me of—who married a mestiza in order to serve the East, and who believes we are in the process of remaking it?”
The Governor nodded. “He’s a great friend of Barry’s.”
Julie seized the opportunity to ask the question that had been for days on her lips, but which she had somehow refrained from putting to Isabel.
“Is he back?”
“Yes. He got in on the Rohilla Maru yesterday. Brought a Chinaman with him—a Sun Yat Sen Something, I think the name was. He likes to show them what’s going on here—and he’s the one to do it. He has not only had the experience, but he has the intuition which makes him understand the life of the East. He has had a great deal more than most people imagine, to do with the formation of the first representative government over here. He and Caples make a strong team.”
Governor Shell pointed out a tubby, deeply tanned, and patriarchally bearded little man; and Julie remembered his name as that of the head of the Commission and a well known scientist.
“Barry hasn’t the training of Caples, and Caples hasn’t Barry’s faith. Caples is ironic, and believes the Americans are going to get tired, as they usually do, and quit, leaving the worst tangle the East ever saw. Science and acute deductions take the faith out of a man, and faith, I believe,” the Governor said hesitatingly, “is one of the great natural forces. It enables Barry to convince a native quicker than any other white man in the East can do it.”
The Governor took out his watch, as if he were in the habit of living by it. “Not a float so far!” he complained. “That’s always the way—you wait and wait!”