“Not at the time. But—it’s odd—I can’t put him out of my mind. Since we passed him and left him apparently hunting a lost ball, I have not been able to put him out of my mind.”
“He seemed civil and well bred. He was perfectly good-humoured—all courtesy and smiles.”
“I think—perhaps—it was the way he smiled at us,” murmured the girl. “Everybody in the East smiles when they draw a knife....”
He placed his arm through hers. “Aren’t you a trifle morbid?” he said pleasantly.
She stooped for her golf ball, retaining a hold on his arm. He picked up his ball, too, put away her clubs and his, and they started back together in silence, evidently with no desire to make it eighteen holes.
“It’s a confounded shame,” he muttered, “just as you were becoming so rested and so delightfully well, to have anything—any unpleasant flash of memory cut in to upset you——”
“I brought it on myself. I should not have risked stirring up the sinister minds that were asleep.”
“Hang it all!—and I asked you to amuse me.”
“It was not wise in me,” she said under her breath. “It is easy to disturb the unknown currents which enmesh the globe. I ought not to have shown you Yian. I ought not to have shown you Yulun. It was my fault for doing that. I was a little lonely, and I wanted to see Yulun.”
They came down the river back to the canoe, threw in their golf bags, and embarked on the glassy stream.