“I couldn’t stay!” she cried.  “The amah told me.  Why did you ever let me come back?  Oh, do something—­help me!”

The face and the voice came to Rudolph like another trouble across a dream.  He knew them, with a pang.  This trembling, miserable heap, flung into the arms of the dark-eyed girl, was Mrs. Forrester.

“Go on,” said the girl, calmly.  She had drawn the woman down beside her on the rattan couch, and clasping her like a child, nodded toward the piano.  “Go on, as if the doctor hadn’t—­hadn’t stopped.”

Heywood was first to obey.

“Come, Chantel, chantez!  Here’s your song.”  He took the stool in leap-frog fashion, and struck a droll simultaneous discord.  “Come on.—­ Well, then, catch me on the chorus!”

“Pour qu’ j’ finisse
Mon service
Au Tonkin je suis parti!”

To a discreet set of verses, he rattled a bravado accompaniment.  Presently Chantel moved to his side, and, with the same spirit, swung into the chorus.  The tumbled white figure on the couch clung to her refuge, her bright hair shining below the girl’s quiet, thoughtful face.  She was shaken with convulsive regularity.

In his riot of emotions, Rudolph found an over-mastering shame.  A picture returned,—­the Strait of Malacca, this woman in the blue moonlight, a Mistress of Life, rejoicing, alluring,—­who was now the single coward in the room.  But was she?  The question was quick and revolting.  As quickly, a choice of sides was forced on him.  He understood these people, recalled Heywood’s saying, and with that, some story of a regiment which lay waiting in the open, and sang while the bullets picked and chose.  All together:  as now these half-dozen men were roaring cheerfully:—­

“Ma Tonkiki, ma Tonkiki, ma Tonkinoise,
Yen a d’autr’s qui m’ font les doux yeux,
Mais c’est ell’ que j’aim’ le mieux!”

The new recruit joined them, awkwardly.

CHAPTER IV

THE SWORD-PEN

“Wutzler was missing last night,” said Heywood, lazily.  He had finished breakfast, and lighted a short, fat, glossy pipe.  “Just occurred to me.  We must have a look in on him.  Poor old Wutz, he’s getting worse and worse.  Chantel’s right, I fancy:  it’s the native wife.”  He rose, with a short laugh.  “Queer.  The rest never feel so,—­Nesbit, and Sturgeon, and that lot.  But then, they don’t fall so low as to marry theirs.”

“By the way,” he sneered, on the landing, “until this scare blows over, you’d better postpone any such establishment, if you intend—­”

“I do not,” stammered Rudolph.

To his amazement, the other clapped him on the shoulder.

“I say!” The sallow face and cynical gray eyes lighted, for the first time, with something like enthusiasm.  Next moment they had darkened again, but not before he had said gruffly, “You’re not a bad little chap.”