Heyst, seated at the table with his chin on his breast, raised his head
at the faint rustle of Lena's dress. He was startled by the dead pallor
of her cheeks, by something lifeless in her eyes, which looked at
him strangely, without recognition. But to his anxious inquiries she
answered reassuringly that there was nothing the matter with her, really. She had felt giddy on rising. She had even had a moment of faintness, after her bath. She had to sit down to wait for it to pass. This had made her late dressing.
"I didn't try to do my hair. I didn't want to keep you waiting any
longer," she said.
He was unwilling to press her with questions about her health, since she
seemed to make light of this indisposition. She had not done her hair, but she had brushed it, and had tied it with a ribbon behind. With her forehead uncovered, she looked very young, almost a child, a careworn child; a child with something on its mind.
What surprised Heyst was the non-appearance of Wang. The Chinaman had
always materialized at the precise moment of his service, neither too
soon nor too late. This time the usual miracle failed. What was the
meaning of this?
Heyst raised his voice--a thing he disliked doing. It was promptly
answered from the compound:
"Ada tuan!"
Lena, leaning on her elbow, with her eyes on her plate, did not seem to
hear anything. When Wang entered with a tray, his narrow eyes, tilted
inward by the prominence of salient cheek-bones, kept her under stealthy
observation all the time. Neither the one nor the other of that white
couple paid the slightest attention to him and he withdrew without
having heard them exchange a single word. He squatted on his heels on
the back veranda. His Chinaman's mind, very clear but not far-reaching, was made up according to the plain reason of things, such as it appeared to him in the light of his simple feeling for self-preservation, untrammelled by any notions of romantic honour or tender conscience. His yellow hands, lightly clasped, hung idly between his knees. The graves of Wang's ancestors were far away, his parents were dead, his elder brother was a soldier in the yamen of some Mandarin away in Formosa. No one near by had a claim on his veneration or his obedience. He had been for years a labouring restless vagabond. His only tie in the world was the Alfuro woman, in exchange for whom he had given away some considerable part of his hard-earned substance; and his duty, in reason, could be to no one but himself.
The scuffle behind the curtain was a thing of bad augury for that Number
One for whom the Chinaman had neither love nor dislike. He had been awed
enough by that development to hang back with the coffee-pot till at last
the white man was induced to call him in. Wang went in with curiosity. Certainly, the white woman looked as if she had been wrestling with a spirit which had managed to tear half her blood out of her before letting her go. As to the man, Wang had long looked upon him as being in some sort bewitched; and now he was doomed. He heard their voices in the room. Heyst was urging the girl to go and lie down again. He was extremely concerned. She had eaten nothing.
"The best thing for you. You really must!"
She sat listless, shaking her head from time to time negatively, as if
nothing could be any good. But he insisted; she saw the beginning of
wonder in his eyes, and suddenly gave way.
"Perhaps I had better."
She did not want to arouse his wonder, which would lead him straight to
suspicion. He must not suspect!