"The consul tells me that he enjoys himself here," she said, avoiding any discussion of his family affairs. "He says that there is very good shooting and some of the best sea-bathing he has ever experienced."
"He is welcome to the shooting, tramping over the hills and through the rice fields in a climate like this. As for the bathing, any pleasure in it is spoiled by the walk home in the heat afterwards."
At that instant the consul, who was playing, returned a ball with such a screw on it that after falling in his opponent's court it bounded back over the net. His opponent, in a mad effort to return it, plunged headlong into the net and fell. In celebration of which achievement the consul threw his racket high in the air, turned a handspring, and ended up by reversing himself and walking across the court on his hands, with his feet in the air.
"Splendid, Mr. Beauchamp!" cried Miss MacAllister. "Brilliantly done! Especially the gymnastic performance!"
"Right-oh, Miss MacAllister!" exclaimed a deep voice behind her. "The consul is acrobat enough to make a shining success as a sailor man."
It was Captain Whiteley, come up to drink a cup of tea and say good-bye before casting off for Hong-Kong.
"Oh, Captain Whiteley, I'm so glad to see you before you go! But what is this I hear? You have let your doctor go off to Keelung to carve Chinese, and perhaps be carved himself. I am surprised at you."
"Not my fault, I assure you, Miss MacAllister. He was bound to go. He is of age. I could not restrain him."
"I think it is just splendid of him to go. That is the sort of thing I admire in a man. If I were a man, that is what I should like to do."
"I am awfully glad, Miss MacAllister, that Sinclair has at last done something which pleases you. I was beginning to be afraid that you were offended with him past the possibility of reconciliation."