Читать книгу Seibert of the Island - Gordon Young - Страница 25

Nada, in telling of various people and happenings, told of Paullen, whom McGuire had said was a gentleman ("which," said McGuire, "will handicap 'im all his life"); of how he had been hurt and his sickness, and of how handsome he was.

"You love him!" Oreena cried instantly.

"No. Indeed not! He had been sick, that's all."

Oreena asked questions about him with unabashed intensity, demanding to know his age, how he looked, how ill he was, who he was, and whatever else she could think of.

"I see no one," she wailed petulantly. "I am dying for a glimpse of something human. You will bring him, you will, won't you? Just once, anyway? Promise! You will, won't you? Poor boy—in that house. I would have died if I had stayed longer. I know you haven't a decent servant. I have a China boy I can spare. He's a fine cook, and just the one for an invalid. I'll send him over with you right to-day. And anything else? What do you need? When he can ride, you will come by this way some time, won't you? Just so I can wave at you. Won't you?"

When Nada rode home that afternoon a hairy little pony jogged dispiritedly along behind her with a Chinaman on it. Lu Lung he was called. As he intoned a sort of grunt to whatever was said in his presence, and gave hardly any other sort of answer to anything, the name did very well. His cheeks were full; his eyes were dark and expressionless. He was a well-fed Chinaman, as those who do kitchen work usually are. A peaked, stiff-strawed hat sheltered his coiled queue, and he wore a loose black blouse and short, tight trousers. A bundle no bigger than a husked cocoanut, done Up in a clean dark cloth and tied by the four corners, was fastened at the saddle-horn, which he gripped with thin, yellow, womanish hands.

Nada was glad to have him; and he was glad to go from the white house with the blue trim, though before leaving he had stopped by the bed of slender lilies, whose fragrant clusters seemed merrily ringing inaudible chimes as they swung to the rhythm of a soft wind. He had looked down for a furtive moment, as if something had been lost there; then he went away.