“Your husband has been carrying me to enchanted lands, Mrs. Camber,” I replied. “I have never known a morning to pass so quickly.”
“Oh,” she replied, and laughed with a childish glee which I was glad to witness. “Did he tell you all about the book which is going to make the world good? Did he tell you it will make us rich as well?”
“Rich?” said Camber, frowning slightly. “Nature’s riches are health and love. If we hold these the rest will come. Now that you have joined us, Ysola, I shall beg Mr. Knox, in honour of this occasion, to drink a glass of wine and break a biscuit as a pledge of future meetings.”
I watched him as he spoke, a lean, unkempt figure invested with a curious dignity, and I found it almost impossible to believe that this was the same man who had sat in the bar of the Lavender Arms, sipping whisky and water. The resemblance to the portrait in Harley’s office became more marked than ever. There was an air of high breeding about the delicate features which, curiously enough, was accentuated by the unshaven chin. I recognized that refusal would be regarded as a rebuff, and therefore:
“You are very kind,” I said.
Colin Camber inclined his head gravely and courteously.
“We are very glad to have you with us, Mr. Knox,” he replied.
He clapped his hands, and, silent as a shadow, Ah Tsong appeared. I noted that although it was Camber who had summoned him, it was to Mrs. Camber that the Chinaman turned for orders. I had thought his yellow face incapable of expression, but as his oblique eyes turned in the direction of the girl I read in them a sort of dumb worship, such as one sees in the eyes of a dog.
She spoke to him rapidly in Chinese.
“Hoi, hoi,” he muttered, “hoi, hoi,” nodded his head, and went out.