The stout man bent double in profound bows, dropping his hat to the very ground, gurgling something almost inarticulate with excitement:
"Mrs. MacAllister! ... I am so pleased! ... Bless my soul! Miss MacAllister.... This is the happiest moment of my life.... 'Pon my honour, it is!"
Above them on the deck Sinclair was saying to McLeod:
"Who is this De Vaux, anyway? Of course, I know that he is chief agent in Formosa of MacAllister, Munro Co. But who is he and what are his antecedents?"
"That is just the question," replied McLeod. "We know, and we don't know. We know that the Honourable Lionel Percival Dudley de Vaux is the oldest known son of the late Lord Eversleigh, the oldest brother or half-brother of the present lord. But why he is out here sweltering and swearing in this steambath of a climate while his younger brother enjoys the cool shade of his ancestral parks and halls, and holds down a seat in the Lords, no one seems to know. Some say that he is the son of the late lord by a Scotch marriage in his wild-oat stage; some that he is a son born to the late lord by the countess dowager before wedlock. At any rate, he was shipped to the Far East as a boy, and here he has been these more than twenty years, pensioned, they say, to keep out of England."
"He seems to be very excitable," said Sinclair, as he looked down at the stout, perspiring individual, who was still holding his hat in his hand, still bowing, still gurgling in a high-toned voice, while his face and head grew redder and shinier every moment.
"Yes, he is now. When he came out first, they say that he was a regular Lord Chesterfield in his manners. But he was here alone for years. No comforts but drink and a yellow woman. He took to both. These with the isolation and the climate have made him what he is. When he meets a white woman he loses his head completely. Any little irritation in business sends him right up in the air. Then he swears. We call him old De Vaux. In fact he has hardly reached middle age. The life here is killing him. If he doesn't die of apoplexy one of those days, he'll commit suicide. And he's not a bad old soul. Just the victim of his parent's wrong-doing. Poor old De Vaux!"
Just then they heard Miss MacAllister saying in a tone of utmost concern:
"Mr. De Vaux, will you not put on your hat? I am so afraid that your head will get sunburned."
"A sunstroke you mean, my dear," said her father, "a sunstroke."