Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

THE YELLOW FLAME. poets had never been born. It sometimes took Paula Wyngate years to like a person. She liked little Chiang at sight, but she had no intention of allowing him to marry Odette. | ‘“‘ Odette, Odette! Where are you, Missey Odette?”” Naura called from the banyan grove. ‘“ Here is your lovely sisitah come from Vahiti!”’ ‘““ These natives are passionately human,”’ he expounded, his soft eyes traversing Pau- la’s beautiful features. ‘“‘ Odette is coming!” Paula exclaimed, stepping into the path to greet her sister. ‘Then permit me not to interrupt your meeting,” Chiang vouchsafed, getting into the car. Before Paula could stay him the machine had slid down the road. “IT suppose my letter brought you, dear?” Odette began, her arms encircling Paula affectionately. “Tt would have brought me from the South Pole,” Paula confessed cheerfully. ““T couldn’t give a shot like that a miss in balk.” Odette was not as tall as her sister, but the red gold of her hair would have awak- ened the most hardened critic to a sense of its beauty. Her skin had the peach velvet tone that was the envy of all the island beauties, who often gathered at Mrs. Com- missioner Blake’s receptions. Odette was the product of an English university. But overeducation had not warped the peculiar brilliance of manner typified in the wit and wisdom of her married sister. “Tf my letter hurt your feelings, Paula, I’m sorry.” ‘““My feelings, dear, are never in ques- tion when your happiness is at stake. I am assuming that it was Mr. Chiang who called here a few moments ago. Let me tell you frankly that I like him. He is a gentle- man of the new school of Orientals that is fast ousting the fusty old mandarin type.” “Yes, that was Chi, dear. I promised to go with him to Mount Lavender. He’s dreadfully self-conscious and thought, no doubt, that we ought to be left alone.” ‘And your mind is quite fixed on mar- rying him?” “Tt isn’t my mind; it’s destiny, dear. 5d5 I like Frank Dillon, too, but somehow Frank is a man any woman could marry— any woman without a destiny, I mean.” Silence fell between them as Naura brought tea and fruit to the veranda. Paula felt instinctively that the tropics were burn- ing her sister’s young blood. She had known women afilicted with orientalism until it made them silly. They raved about Asian creeds and certain forms of Buddhism until they became a nuisance to their friends. Paula talked of the pleasures of her trip to Songolo, but like a seasoned skirmisher beat back again to the Chiang trail. business had got to be handled briskly and with finality. ‘““And speaking of Mr. Chiang, dear, I should like awfully to congratulate you. He is, I feel sure, a gentleman in the best Sense, a young man of astonishingly wide culture and taste.” “Some of the whites one meets here,” Odette interrupted enthusiastically, ‘‘ have the manners of coolies. Of course Chi has got to thank Oxford for his English man- ner.” ‘“His manner does not belong to any university,’ Paula corrected sweetly; “ it is like the sugar in a banana—it belongs to the tree. Mr. Chiang is a high born Celes- tial; he will never be anything else.” “ What do you mean, Paula?” “ Just that, dear. fifty years you’d find yourself talking al- ways to a Chinaman. He would never say ‘The top av the mornin’ to ye,’ as poor Frank says it.” “A bit of blarney isn’t everything, Paula,” Odette countered. ‘ And look at Frank! He isn’t a bit artistic. At the present moment Chi is studying the early life of Leonardo da Vinci, and other early Italian masters. He knows more about rare prints than most dealers. He has translated Schiller into Cantonese! Really, Frank wouldn’t understand these things!”’ Paula began to feel that her task was no light one. At any moment these two young representatives of the East and West might, without word or sign, plunge into matri- mony and defy the world. In the afternoon Paula visited the prin- cipal shopping quarter of the town and com- GComichboo The If you lived with him _ <S Eom ‘ r rere PAP in Pet ee ae