“Yes, I’ve no doubt you’ve been managing to have a moderately good time,” said Mallinson acidly.
“Certainly I have. This establishment caters for all tastes – some people like little Chink gels who play the pi-anno, isn’t that so? You can’t blame anybody for what they fancy.”
Conway was not at all put out, but Mallinson flushed like a schoolboy. “You can send them to jail, though, when they fancy other people’s property,” he snapped, stung to fury that set a raw edge to his wits.
“Sure, if you can catch ’em.” The American grinned affably. “And that leads me to something I may as well tell you folks right away, now we’re on the subject. I’ve decided to give those porters a miss. They come here pretty regular, and I’ll wait for the next trip, or maybe the next but one. That is, if the monks’ll take my word that I’m still good for my hotel expenses.”
“You mean you’re not coming with us?”
“That’s it. I’ve decided to stop over for a while. It’s all very fine for you – you’ll have the band playing when you get home, but all the welcome I’ll get is from a row of cops. And the more I think about it, the more it don’t seem good enough.”
“In other words, you’re just afraid to face the music?”
“Well, I never did like music, anyhow.”
Mallinson said with cold scorn: “I suppose it’s your own affair. Nobody can prevent you from stopping here all your life if you feel inclined.” Nevertheless he looked round with a flash of appeal. “It’s not what everybody would choose to do, but ideas differ. What do you say, Conway?”
“I agree. Ideas do differ.”
Mallinson turned to Miss Brinklow, who suddenly put down her book and remarked: “As a matter of fact, I think I shall stay too.”
“What?” they all cried together.
She continued, with a bright smile that seemed more an attachment to her face than an illumination of it: “You see, I’ve been thinking over the way things happened to bring us all here, and there’s only one conclusion I can come to. There’s a mysterious power working behind the scenes. Don’t you think so, Mr. Conway?”
Conway might have found it hard to reply, but Miss Brinklow went on in a gathering hurry: “Who am I to question the dictates of Providence? I was sent here for a purpose, and I shall stay.”
“Do you mean you’re hoping to start a mission here?” Mallinson asked.
“Not only hoping, but fully intending. I know just how to deal with these people – I shall get my own way, never fear. There’s no real grit in any of them.”
“And you intend to introduce some?”
“Yes, I do, Mr. Mallinson. I’m strongly opposed to that idea of moderation that we hear so much about. You can call it broadmindedness if you like, but in my opinion it leads to the worst kind of laxity. The whole trouble with the people here is their so-called broadmindedness, and I intend to fight it with all my powers.”
“And they’re so broad-minded that they’re going to let you?” said Conway, smiling.
“Or else she’s so strong-minded that they can’t stop her,” put in Barnard. He added with a chuckle: “It’s just what I said – this establishment caters for all tastes.”
“Possibly, if you happen to like prison,” Mallinson snapped.
“Well, there’s two ways of looking even at that. My goodness, if you think of all the folks in the world who’d give all they’ve got to be out of the racket and in a place like this, only they can’t get out! Are we in the prison or are they?”
“A comforting speculation for a monkey in a cage,” retorted Mallinson; he was still furious.
Afterwards he spoke to Conway alone. “That man still gets on my nerves,” he said, pacing the courtyard. “I’m not sorry we shan’t have him with us when we go back. You may think me touchy, but being chipped about that Chinese girl didn’t appeal to my sense of humor.”
Conway took Mallinson’s arm. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that he was very fond of the youth, and that their recent weeks in company had deepened the feeling, despite jarring moods. He answered: “I rather took it that I was being ragged about her, not you.”
“No, I think he intended it for me. He knows I’m interested in her. I am, Conway. I can’t make out why she’s here, and whether she really likes being here. My God, if I spoke her language as you do, I’d soon have it out with her.”
“I wonder if you would. She doesn’t say a great deal to anyone, you know.”
“It puzzles me that you don’t badger her with all sorts of questions.”
“I don’t know that I care for badgering people.”
He wished he could have said more, and then suddenly the sense of pity and irony floated over him in a filmy haze; this youth, so eager and ardent, would take things very hardly. “I shouldn’t worry about Lo-Tsen if I were you,” he added. “She’s happy enough.”
The decision of Barnard and Miss Brinklow to remain behind seemed to Conway all to the good, though it threw Mallinson and himself into an apparently opposite camp for the time being. It was an extraordinary situation, and he had no definite plans for tackling it.
Fortunately there was no apparent need to tackle it at all. Until the two months were past, nothing much could happen; and afterwards there would be a crisis no less acute for his having tried to prepare himself for it. For this and other reasons he was disinclined to worry over the inevitable, though he did once say: “You know, Chang, I’m bothered about young Mallinson. I’m afraid he’ll take things very badly when he finds out.”
Chang nodded with some sympathy. “Yes, it will not be easy to persuade him of his good fortune. But the difficulty is, after all, only a temporary one. In twenty years from now our friend will be quite reconciled.”
Conway felt that this was looking at the matter almost too philosophically. “I’m wondering,” he said, “just how the truth’s going to be broached to him. He’s counting the days to the arrival of the porters, and if they don’t come – ”
“But they will come.”
“Oh? I rather imagined that all your talk about them was just a pleasant fable to let us down lightly.”