Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 95: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE He sat very still, stiller than anything she had ever seen. Not a muscle or lash of his dark eyes moved. His face had grown rigid. “Won't you answer, Mr. Chiang?” she almost pleaded. He rose from his seat painfully and slow- ly. It was some time before he spoke, and when he did his voice had grown very harsh, like an instrument that had received ill usage. “Tf you had asked for my life,” he said with difficulty, ‘I could have given it in your service.” ‘“* It means Odette’s life,” Paula answered wistfully. She paused and met his search- ing eyes steadily. ‘ And mine, too!” He had come quite close to her now as one whose breast was bared again for the knife. She knew that she had struck him. Every fiber in his frail body had felt it. But the soul of the East ran like sobbing flames in his young blood. “Your life, too, Mrs. Wyngate! so horrible?”’ He half whispered. “T think you are capable of the noblest sacrifice!”’ “ Tf—if you asked it,” he stammered, “how could I refuse? I cannot bring this tragedy into your life!” He paused and his breath came like one who had cast himself from a great height. He turned his face from the tropic light after the manner of a child sick with pein. Paula began to experience her own agony of mind, something of the fierce anguish that was searching his boyish heart. She stood up and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. ‘I wish I could have kept this out of your life until you were old enougi to laugh it away. I, too, know what pain is like!” He turned to her swiftly, his dark eyes flinching in the cruel white light. “ Why should you suffer one breath of pain, be- cause I am foolish enough to dream of a love that cannot be?” Paula felt herself being caught in the quicksands of his despair. Instinct warned her that she must retreat or surrender. Very slowly she walked to the foyer entrance, the warm perfumes of a hundred islands beating upon her baffled senses. She could Am I YELLOW FLAME. 557 not pursue her object further. It was like torturing a child. He was standing beside her in the hall- way, his face a mask of suppressed emo- tions. ‘ It is very foolish of me, Mrs. Wyn- gate, to resist your appeal. But—it was so sudden. I could not bring myself to a full realization—” he added brokenly. “Tt will come easier after a while,” she answered with returning courage. “ Odette will understand if it is made clear. There is a way to make her see the difference in your—” “Nationality,” he nodded thoughtfully. Paula considered the word a moment. It did not seem enough. She would have liked Chiang to prove something more, something that would reveal to Odette the real differ- ence between East and West. He seemed to read the riddle in her mind; a crucified smile lingered on his drawn lips. “For your sake, Mrs. Wyngate, every- thing shall be made clear to Odette. There shall be no doubt in her mind concerning the difference between West and East.” He paused as though struggling with his madly racing thoughts, while the clamor of the port and the shouting of coolies outside, broke in upon their perfumed isolation. The touch of Paula’s hand against his sleeve seemed to wake him to the realities of life. “Some day, early this week,” he half whispered, “ bring Odette into the Yamen, where [I frequently officiate in a judicial ca- pacity. I think I know what we want.” In the sunlit foyer she turned slowly and held out her hand. He kissed it after the manner of a young courtier. ‘“ Good-by!” he intoned with studied ease. Her eyes searched him swiftly, but she saw no shadow of emotion on his inscrutable face. Ii]. Pavuta breathed nothing to Odette con- cerning her chance interview with Chiang. A couple of days slipped by allowing them an opportunity of visiting various places of interest in Songolo. Chiang did not again appear at the house, neither did Odette refer to his absence. Paula was exercised in mind anent his invitation to enter the Yamen, a place used as a courthouse, where Chinese EORMICLOO© cS (<0)