I have read in works on the psychology of women that they often tell with a look what they are unable or unwilling to frame in spoken words. Certainly I knew that she had told me to put my coat on, and she knew that I had understood. And so, even as she drove me out of her room there was an understanding between us that was not wanting in subtlety. She had even asked me to make an effort to protect her; and she was no longer angry.
I had my coat on now, and was reaching for the door knob when a sound outside arrested my hand. Men were coming up the stairs to our hall.
She heard them too. She was rigid again, her hand resting on the bureau.
I could hear the Chinese porter talking pidgin-English as he came along the hall. Behind him sounded a ponderous step. Then came another voice, as the heavy step paused right near us—at my door, I thought.
“Here, boy, this is number nineteen.”
It was a loose throaty voice, unlike any other in the wide world. I should have recognized it anywhere, in a drawing-room or blindfolded at the bottom of a mine. It brought rushing to my mind pictures of a ship's smoking-room where sat an old man with a wrinkled skin and one drooping eyelid who held forth on every subject known to man—pictures of the absurdly Anglo-Saxon hotel at Yokohama, and of a strange evening at the notorious “Number Nine” where an old man had smiled cynically at me.
Sir Robert had arrived at Peking. He had come to this hotel. He was to occupy room number nineteen, directly opposite the closed door behind which I stood, motionless, breathless.
I felt momentarily ill. Which was foolish.
For what is he to me or I to him! But he had stirred a confusion of thoughts in my mind. I saw the face of another man—a strong face, even when flushed with drink—I saw that face with tears on it, working convulsively. And directly behind me stood the woman. There she was, and there, with her, was I myself. I felt the strange, rushing drama of life whirling about me. I suddenly knew that every man is entangled in it—and every woman.... Oh, God, why does she have to be so beautiful! And so terribly alone!
The porter was opening the door of number nineteen, just across the hall. Sir Robert was still at my door, swearing to himself.