He bowed. “I must think. I should not like to fail. There will be time. He will”—it was hard to phrase this—“he will wait, surely, until he is at home. But you must not stay longer here. And we must not meet again like this. I will try my best to help you.”
It seemed a pitifully inadequate speech. But the wild impulse was upon him to clasp her lovely person in his arms—claim her, fight for her, live again a man's life through and for her. It was, he deliberately thought, almost insane in him. A man with nothing to offer, not even the great hope of youth, struggling against an emotion, a hunger, that it was grotesque to indulge. He compressed his lips tightly.
She seemed breathless. For a moment she pressed her hands to her cheeks and eyes; then waved to him and went lightly down the ladder.
CHAPTER V—RESURGENCE
THE upper-deck passengers awoke in the morning to find the engines still at rest, and the now familiar View of Kiu Kiang still to be seen from port-side windows; the Yen Hsin had merely been moved a hundred yards or so below the landing hulk and anchored. There was grumbling about the breakfast table. The captain did not appear. The huge mate was preoccupied; explaining with grave courtesy that he had no further news. He assumed that orders to proceed to Hankow would be forthcoming during the day. It was understood now that the republican troops were everywhere protecting white folk, and, in any event, the foreign concessions up the river were well guarded by the war-ships.
The outstanding fact was that they were to spend at least another night on the river. The sensible thing to do, or so decided the younger men, was to have a dance. Accordingly, before tiffin, committees were hard at work planning decorations for the social hall. Miss Means proved a fertile source of entertaining ideas. And it was agreed, during the day, that Miss Andrews had a pretty taste at hanging flags.
The Chinese day begins with the light. And little Mr. Kato, sitting smilingly through breakfast, had already passed hours among his below-decks acquaintance. After breakfast he sat outside with the Kanes, senior and junior, talking rapidly. There Miss Carmichael observed them; later, when Rocky stood by the rail throwing brass cash down into the crowding, nosing sampans of the water beggars, she strolled his way—looking incredibly young—carrying a book from the boat's library, a thin finger between the pages as a mark. She smiled at the quarreling beggars below. But he, at sight of her, grew sulky.
“You didn't come last night,” he said, very low, his voice thick with suddenly rising feeling.