“As I look back on it all, there is a queer atmosphere about the whole affair,” said Jasper. “Such a place I never have known, as that little dining-room in Rydamphur. Mr. Routledge seemed to grasp at once that my interest was sincere. His mind was filled with the pith of things I wanted to learn. No Englishman seemed to be able to talk impersonally on the famine.... I’ll never forget the baking night in that house. The punkahs jerked every moment or so, as if the coolie had stopped to scratch himself. There was a cat-footed servant hanging about, and the lamps were turned low—as if a bright flame could not live in that burned air.”
Mr. Jasper took evident pleasure in the intensity of interest his narrative inspired. “But first I must tell you, Miss Cardinegh,” he went on, “that just as I entered the town in the afternoon, I passed a little hut with an open door. The breath that came out to me, I’ll not attempt to describe: only to say that there was in it more than realism. I had come far to see a real famine, and this was my first lesson. A few steps on from the hut, I turned to see a white man coming out. It was not Mr. Routledge, but a smaller man, dressed in native garb. I have thought much of his face. It had a look as if all the tragedies that a man can know had beaten upon it; and yet it was so strong and so calm.... It was all like a dream to me. Then this wonderful talk with Mr. Routledge at dinner. Afterward, I asked his name, but he withheld it laughingly—in such a way that I took no offense—only wondered at it.”
“But you learned his name——”
“Yes, I will tell you. That night after he left me, I went to my room and thought a long time on the things he had said. I remember one of his sayings impressed me greatly—that we of the occident had learned to suffer only through our excesses—but India through her famines. He intimated that the latter process is better for the soul.... It was too hot to think of sleep, so I went out to walk in that still, stricken place. At the far end of the street, I saw a candle-light and heard the voice of a white man. And that voice I shall never forget—so low was it, so thrilling and gentle. I remember the words—they were printed on some inner wall of my brain. This is what the voice said:
“‘... Night and morning, I shall send you my blessing, Routledge, my brother. Morning and evening, until we meet again in the Leper Valley, you shall know that there is a heart that longs for the good of your life and your soul. Good-by.’... I hurried back, lest it be thought that I was eavesdropping. The man who spoke was the white man in native garb who had emerged in the afternoon from that hut of unburied dead. The man whom he addressed as ‘Routledge’—and thus I learned his name—was the one who had talked to me so brilliantly at dinner. A third sat in the candle-light—a very aged Hindu.... It is all very memorable to me, Miss Cardinegh.”
Again and again he told the story, or parts of it, to the woman; also of the doings of Routledge the next morning, before the English came. Noreen thanked him brokenly at last and hurried back to her father’s state-room. Mr. Jasper saw very little of the lady during the rest of the voyage, and lost her entirely at Shanghai, where in stopping over he is left behind the movement of the present narrative—a worthy, growing American who will have much to tell his sister of Madras and the interior, in spite of missing the illustrious Annie Besant, pronounced “Bessant” for esoteric reasons.
The incident was like oxygen to the tired woman. Nearing Shanghai, the Empress steamer nosed the winter zone, and Jerry Cardinegh was not well enough to go ashore. Noreen had shopping to do, and took the afternoon launch up the river for an hour in the city. Snow was falling. On the Bund, Noreen encountered Finacune, who had come down from Tokyo to get a glance at affairs from the outside. He declared that little or nothing was to be learned in the Japanese capital. Already the nation was constructing an impenetrable atmosphere about her great war. Finacune was going back on the Empress. As the time was short, they parted to attend their several errands, planning to meet at the launch later.
With her parcels, Noreen hurried back from the shops to the Bund in the winter twilight. Finacune, who had not seen her, was fifty feet ahead, also making for the water-front. She saw him stop short, stare for an instant at the profile of a huge, gaunt figure—in the great frieze coat! It was then that the mighty leap of her heart forced a cry from her throat.... Routledge, staring out over the darkening river, started at her voice and the touch of her hand. For a moment he pressed his fingers against his eyes as if trying to shut out some haunt from his brain. Then he, spoke slowly:
“I did not think that there were substances fine enough in the world to make a woman so beautiful——”
“Routledge-san! Oh, God, there is only a moment or two!”