Peter the Brazen Part 48

"Yes," he admitted, lamely: "I saw you pa.s.sing the jetty. I followed--naturally. I have just come from America."

"Oh." Her voice expressed no surprise. "You came for me, Peter?"

"I thought you were dead," he confessed.

"Well, I am a hard one to kill!" A tiny smile flickered across her fine lips. "You are not married--to Eileen?"

"No--and never!" he said dully.

"But you must be in love! You are always in love--with some one."

"I am in love with no one."

"Not even----"

"I am in love with no one."

"Nor am I," said Romola Borria quietly. It seemed to come from her as a vast and reluctant confession. "I loved only one man, and my love for him is quite dead. If I should rake over the embers--oh, but I have raked them over, Peter, many, many times--and I have found not one single small ember glowing! When love dies, you know, it requires a great fire to rekindle it. Oh, I have suffered!"

"He--is dead?"

She smiled again, rather ironically. "Can a man live with a bullet in his heart?"

"I--I saw. I thought--but what does it matter what I thought?" He was trying to inject some of his old spirit into his voice. It was rather difficult, this business of laughing at the funeral of love. "Romola, you are more beautiful!"

"I have suffered," she said, in the same restrained voice.

He turned away with a shrug. He, too, had suffered, but in a somewhat different light. He was examining with a professional eye the heap of apparatus which was arranged in splendid order along the back of the small room.

"I am studying. You see, Peter," she explained, in the same rather recriminatory tones, "I was rather fond of you at one time----"

"Romola, please----"

"And because it was your profession I became interested in it. I heard the message you sent last night--to--to the place on Jen Kee Road. I was quite worried for a while."

"That was why you happened along the bund about the time the boat came up-river?"

"Perhaps." She smiled vaguely.

"You wanted to find out if I still cared enough for you to----"

"Follow me? Yes, Peter; I think that was why."

"Then you didn't know I was on my way to China?"

"No, Peter, I knew nothing."

"Aren't you connected with my good friend, the man with the sea-lion mustaches, in Len Yang?"

Romola gave a short gasp. "I never was connected with him."

"But you told me you were--back there on the _Persian Gulf_!"

She shook her head slowly, with a gentle firmness.

"No. I did not tell you that. I have seen him; yes. But I was never in his employ. It was Emiguel Borria, my late and--may I say?--my unlamented husband, who made me do those things. Peter----"

Her att.i.tude seemed to undergo some sort of subtle change, as if she were bitterly amused. "You say you are not in love. Then what of the little golden-haired girl--the two little golden-haired girls--you left this afternoon on the bund?"

"They and the young man are pa.s.sengers on the _King of Asia_. I brought them ash.o.r.e to give them an insight into China-as-it-really-is."

"They are in very capable hands, then, Peter. Aren't you running some risk, though? Isn't there some chance that the men in the Jen Kee Road place may take it into their heads----"

"I am on my word of honor, Romola. I have come back to China, not to start trouble, but simply because--well, why are you in China?"

"Because I haven't the will to leave, perhaps. I stay here in the same spirit that a man or a woman lingers before a dreadful oil painting, like the shark picture of Sorolla; it is terrible, but it is fascinating. I cannot leave. If I did, I would come back, as you come back, time after time. Is that why you've come back?"

"Exactly."

"And you imagine you're running no risk with the two golden-haired maids in tow?"

Peter shook his head thoughtfully. "Perhaps I shouldn't have exposed them to danger. But they were determined, and it's partly to help the young man. Anthony is a plain American business man. He's in love with the youngest. And she, a hero wors.h.i.+pper. He wants to demonstrate himself."

She interrupted in a whisper. "Peter, tell me, why is it? What have you ever done? What do you say? Why--why is it?"

Peter the Brazen was looking at her blankly.

She made a gesture of resignation with her beautiful white hands.

"Well, never mind. Tell me more about Anthony."

"Anthony believes that if he can demonstrate his valor to Peggy, she will come to his arms. He really is a fine, upstanding fellow. I had intended bringing them to Ching Tong's place out Bubbling Wells way, harmless enough and watched by the police of nine nations. Ching Tong, being a friend who will put himself out for me, will play the part of a very bad villain. Anthony's revolver is loaded with blanks. Mine isn't, but that's just my cowardly nature. You can never tell what might turn up, you know."

"Naturally. Go on."

"I intend to have Ching Tong stage a very realistic fight down in his cellar, in which Anthony can overpower eight or ten c.h.i.n.k giants, escape out of the window with the fainting Peggy in his arms, and--and----"

"Simple enough," admitted Romola, with a mild frown. She drew him to a broad, low bench. "Somehow," she went on, "your idea rather appeals to me, too. I liked Anthony's looks--what I saw of him. And I rather liked the two little girls--twins, aren't they?"

Peter nodded. "The heavenly twins!"

"I think I'd quite agree with that plan, Peter, if you didn't happen to be in such disrepute in this neighborhood. You must realize that the Gray Dragon's men are watching you. Of course, you didn't recognize your rickshaw coolie. He is one of the Gray Dragon's men--naturally.

Don't you think you are exposing those two nice girls unnecessarily to danger?"

Peter lighted two cigarettes, and pa.s.sed one of them to Romola. She accepted it with an air of abstraction and puffed slowly, blowing out a thin stream of pale smoke.

"But circ.u.mstances are changed now. You see, I am on the fence--perfectly safe."