“And of course she would look like that,” Julie declared. “Oh! tell me about her.”
“She is a strange creature, certainly,” Mrs. Calixter said. “Her father was an Englishman, I believe; her mother, one of those unanalyzable mixtures of strains you find over here. I think they were married to legitimatize Isabel, whose beauty and brilliance were remarkable. She has had the best of education abroad, and is, without the shadow of a doubt, the most deeply clever woman in the East—as well as one of the richest; for from the submerged mother she received one of the great insular fortunes. At seventeen she was married to Richard Armistead, a middle-aged Englishman of first-rate family, who for years held an important position as head of a bank here. He is in England now, for his health; and there are very strong indications that he will not come back. I imagine Isabel has a way of disposing of inconveniences. That is not so difficult here.”
“Why, what do you mean? She hasn’t hurt anybody, has she?”
“Not that I know of. But when people are in the way over here, they are just put out of it.” Mrs. Calixter dropped her voice. “There’s a woman over there—quite beautiful, you see—with no sign about her of being a daughter of the land, yet when she wanted another husband she managed to bring it about. She and the man she wanted, so Mrs. Roxas will tell you, the two of them, just did for poor Tony. He was delicate, and they merely made him die somehow. Yet nobody ever fastened anything on to them.
“This is the land of the new chance. Men and women who never found their chance at home, or who debauched it, are seeking their Eldorado here. Standards, social and moral, are easier here than at home. There’s a lawlessness of soul that hangs heavy in the atmosphere. You are too young to see it yet. Even the girls are quite vivid—and inimitably experienced. Whether it is so or not, they give one the impression always of taking the most perilous chances.”
She looked penetratingly into Julie’s breathlessly intent face. “My dear, you are neither old enough nor strong enough to encounter Manila—a city three centuries old quickened by a new population—new wine in old bottles! That’s why I don’t want you to remain over here.”
“It’s wonderful,” Julie murmured with shining eyes “—like an Arabian Nights’ dream. I do so want to stay.”
Mrs. Calixter’s attention reverted to Isabel, who stood not far away. She said that Isabel had been loved by many men of many races, and like an empress of the East, she loved them royally for a day, and then flung them aside. A woman whose blood was part of the East, part of the West—nobody knew just where the division lay. Mrs. Calixter stopped as she saw Isabel approaching. She was looking at Julie.
“Isn’t this,” she asked, greeting Mrs. Calixter, “my young acquaintance of this afternoon? I feared when she walked out so radiantly into the shadows that that might be the last of her that I should see.”
Julie, looking across into the flashing face, concluded that she had never seen anybody who intimated so many human possibilities—unless it were the young host of this occasion. Isabel fascinated her, and made her feel as if some queer Sybil of the Eastern bazaars were summoning her down secret streets.