People talked with English voices in Hongkong. Edward could hardly hear what the women said. England at last! He followed a couple of pink, small-headed subalterns to the hotel. He heard one say, “By Jove,” in a throaty English voice. Edward felt no longer despised and exotic. He saw that everyone in the hotel lobby looked cooler than himself. But the faces were English and not complacent. Or even if they were a little complacent—why not?—they were English. He ordered a cocktail.
“After that I will look in the register,” he thought. “Perhaps Emily’s name will lie like a strip of light on the first page I look at.”
He did not know Emily’s last name.
He could hardly believe for a moment that he did not know her name. The cocktail was so good that while he was drinking it he thought, “I shall think of her name in a minute.” But nobody had ever told him her name.
“I know Tam’s name at least.”
It was a pseudonym.
He deliberately interposed a blankness between his brain and this disaster of a China rendered empty of Emily. China to him meant Emily now. The divorce of the two words—China—Emily—was inconceivable.
He studied the register. “If I see her writing I shall recognise it—though I have never seen it.”
A long untidy addition sum of names lay before him on the page. The result of the sum was—nothing. He turned to another fruitless page. Another. “Miss E. L. Spring, Walthamstow.... Mr. Irwin Scales, Binset, Somerset ... Mrs. Irwin Scales....” The date of those was about right. E. L. Spring? It was a blasphemy. Walthamstow?...