The Charmed Life of Miss Austin
And, oh, Edith! While you're in Peking won't you get me one of those darling Peking Pugs--a blue and white one? You can give it to me when we meet at Yokohama. Probably I could buy one in New York, but it would never be the same. I want to know that mine actually came from the wonderful old city--and direct to me! You just can't imagine how I envy you that part of your tour. I think it was perfectly dear of your uncle and aunt to take you there! But aren't you just a teeny bit afraid, with everybody saying the revolution may break out yet--any second? . . .
Mrs. Wilberly, who was on the couch with one of her nervous headaches, dropped the letter to her lap, saying: "What on earth does Harriet mean by a Peking pug, Edith?"
Miss Austin turned toward her aunt a girlish face that exhibited no trace of whatever adventurous desires may have been stirring behind it. The well modeled mouth, the broad, low forehead, the straight nose, the firmly pointed chin, the healthy coloring, that was softened by a trace of ocean tan, combined to make it an extremely pretty face. The hazel eyes were wide and demure. Though she had been lounging in her room all this rather tiresome afternoon, her fluffy brown hair was in place to the last strand, her shirtwaist was immaculate, her perfect-fitting cloth skirt was as trim as if it had just been ironed to her figure.
"Oh, you know," she replied, rather absently--tiny sleeve dog, with long hair and cunning little eyes."
"But who ever heard of a blue and white dog? Chinaware, porcelain--yes. But a dog!"
"There are queerer things than that in China," replied Miss Austin sagely, opening the door to the adjoining room, then lingering a moment to ask: "Uncle Frank hasn't sent any word, has he?"
"No; he's still out with those Belgian engineers. He says there will be a fortune here in coal and iron after the revolution."
An expression that might have meant great inner impatience flitted across Miss Austin's face. But she composed herself instantly, and gazed with meditative eyes toward the window. "I was just thinking," she mused, "that it might not be too late yet to go out somewhere and buy the dog." She lingered a moment longer, then suddenly turned and entered her own room.
"Be careful about going out alone!" called her aunt, in a voice that rose nervously.
But the door had closed.
Mrs. Wilberly sank back among the cushions and sighed: "Girls," she reflected, "are becoming utterly unmanageable--what with all the ideas of emancipation and independence they pick up nowadays." That this very hotel, here in the Legation Quarter of Peking, sheltered at the moment a horridly fascinating assemblage of adventurers and adventuresses from every corner of the earth appeared rather to please Edith than otherwise; that, until the lull of the past few weeks, foreign troops had been arriving by every train, and panicky Manchus and Chinese residents had been heaping into carts their gold and silver, their bronzes, ivories, porcelains, c1oisonnés, silks, jades, and carvings, and streaming frantically out through every gate of the Tartar City, seemed merely to stir the girl to a romantic impatience for the event.
Mrs. Wilberly pressed her hands to her throbbing temples, and reflected on the burden he bears who assumes responsibility for another life.
Miss Austin came slowly down the broad stairway into the main hall of the hotel, pausing on the lowest step for a glance at the gay, exotic scene before her.
The walls of the passage blazed with the Mandarin coats, skirts, and squares of embroidery that privileged venders were offering for sale. Moving about, chatting quietly, sipping tea or whisky-and-soda with richly gowned women, were officers in the uniforms of many nations, nearly all with the blurred eyes of the hard drinker, yet all vigorous of body. Cynical gentlemen from various legations were in evidence here and there. Almost at her elbow, two Russians, a Norwegian, and a Chinese Mandarin were talking together in French. "It is like a little pasteboard Paris set down out here," she thought.