After tiffin she was stretched comfortably in her deck chair, reading, or seeming to, when Connor appeared, strolling along the deck, hands deep in pockets, chewing the inevitable Manila cigar. He wore a neat cap, and his large person was clothed in an outing suit of gray flannel. On his feet were shoes of whitened leather with rubber soles. To any but a shrewd student of physiognomy he might have passed for a prosperous American business man or politician, of the bluff western sort.
He paused at her careless nod; bent his face around and stared coldly at her. Nothing of the real man showed; even his rough vulgarity was concealed behind the mask and the manner. He ought to have a woman to tell him, she thought, that he was altogether too stout to wear a Norfolk jacket.
“Sit down?” she asked.
He dropped into the chair beside her.
“Looks as if we'd be hung up here till night anyhow,” he said gruffly. “All foolishness, too. It's safe enough between here and Hankow. The Jardine boat came down this morning. And we land at the concessions—don't have to go clear up to the city.” He drummed on the chair; shifted his cigar. “I can't hang around here. Got to get up to Peking before they close off the railroad.”
She listened quietly to this little tirade; then remarked: “Thought over my proposition, Tex?”
“What proposition?.... Oh, that scheme? Sure, I've thought it over. Nothing in it, Dix.”
“Why not?”
“Too complicated. Did you ever see a lot of soldiers on the loose—their killing blood up? You could never handle 'em in the world.”
“Oh, of course,” said she, “if you tried any coarse work. But I wouldn't pin that on you, Tex.”