It was perhaps the largest party of foreigners which had ever gathered in North Formosa. Consular, mission and custom staffs, merchants, the doctor, naval officers, visitors, and hosts, they numbered thirty or more. The measure of uncertainty, the spice of a possible peril, added zest to their intercourse. Just out of sight over the projecting ridge of the hill to the north of the harbour, the Château Renaud was lying at anchor. That very day the long, low, sinister-looking Vipère had slipped into the very mouth of the harbour. She could be plainly seen from where they sat chatting and sipping their tea on the deck of the Hailoong. Every one felt that these engines of war were big with potentialities of danger and death.
As usual, since her arrival in Formosa, Miss MacAllister was the centre of attraction. Bald-headed seniors like De Vaux and Boville vied with young men like Carteret and mere youths like Lanyon for her company and her smiles. But for reasons best known to herself she chose to give those privileges in much the largest measure to McLeod. As one of the hosts he had not in any way tried to monopolize her. But she showed so marked a partiality for his companionship that it did appear as if he had the monopoly.
"It seems as if no person but a seaman has any show with the ladies to-day," said Carteret with that indefinable bitterness of tone which he so often used. It called attention to the fact that each of the ladies present was deep in conversation with an officer of one or other of the ships.
"By my faith, it can't be the sea which is the attraction," retorted Lieutenant Lanyon, "for none of them will look at me. In Miss MacAllister's case it is the clannishness of the Scotch," he continued, loud enough for her to hear. "If McLeod weren't a Mac, he'd have no more show than I have, and that's no show at all, at all."
He thought that he would draw her by his very boldness, as he had done on more than one occasion before. All the satisfaction he got was:
"Now, Mr. Lanyon, please do not let everybody on board know that you cannot get a lady to talk to you. There's mother. She has just finished her conversation with Captain Whiteley. I know that she will take pity on you."
Lanyon joined as heartily as the rest in the laugh at his own expense, and, accepting her suggestion, was soon amusing himself and Mrs. MacAllister with his boyish tales of adventures and scrapes in the navy.
Meanwhile Miss MacAllister was saying to McLeod:
"Really, Mr. McLeod, I do not know what some of these men are made of. To think that they could sit here doing the little routine work of their offices, with battles going on within twenty miles of them, and never so much as go to see what a battle is like! I wanted to go myself. But father and the consul wouldn't let me."
"You must remember, Miss MacAllister, that the majority of things which are called men are not men. They are only dressed up to look like men. When they get in danger or any other place which needs men, all the man in them disappears and there is nothing left but the clothes."