Five Nights | Page 9

brimming to the lids with extraordinary light and fire;
delicately narrow black eyebrows arched above on the low satiny
forehead, from which was brushed upwards a mass of shining black
hair piled on the top of the small head and apparently secured there by
two weighty gold pins thrust through from side to side.
The last touch of beauty, if any were needed, was added by the earrings
of turquoise-blue stone that swung against the ivory-tinted softness of
the full young throat.
Those blue stones against the creamy neck! For years afterwards how I
could see them again in the darkness that lies behind closed lids! How
often I was back in the crimson darkness of the tiny chamber with the
sea song of the Alaskan waves coming through the painted rushes
above my head!
She was very simply dressed, yet so fitly to her own beauty.
A straight pale blue jacket covered her shoulders and opened on the

breast over a white muslin vest. Her skirts hung like the full trousers of
Persian women, and were a deep yellow in colour. Her feet were bare,
and shone white on the red floor.
"How do you do, Suzee?" said Morley.
"How do you do, Mister Morlee," returned the girl lightly, smiling and
showing pretty little teeth as she did so.
"You two gentlemen want some tea? Very good. I make it."
She glided to the curtains and disappeared as rapidly and noiselessly as
she had entered.
I turned to Morley with enthusiasm.
"She's lovely, perfect."
"Isn't she just? I knew you'd say so. But she's married, old man, so don't
you think you can go playing any tricks with her."
"Married?" I gasped incredulously, "that child? Impossible! You're
joking."
"I'm not, 'pon my honour. She has a great roaring brute of a baby, too."
"How horrible!" I exclaimed. "Yes, horrible. You've spoiled it all. It
seems a sacrilege."
"Fiddlesticks," returned my practical friend. "That's the sort that does
these things, isn't it? Would you expect her to turn into an old maid?"
"No, but so young!" I faltered. In reality it was a shock to me. To have
such an exquisite sight float before one for a moment, and then to be
roughly dragged down to earth from the exaltation it had caused, hurt
and bruised me.
The next moment she was back again, bearing a tray in her hands
which she set on our table, and deftly arranged the steaming teapot and

tiny cups before us.
As she bent near us over the little table a strange sensation of delight
came over me, a faint scent of roses reached me from the little buds
behind her ear. The blue stones in the long gold earrings swung against
her neck of cream as she set out the tea things.
"How is your boy, Suzee?" asked Morley with a tone of mischief in his
voice.
"He is very well, thank you, Mister Morlee."
"I should like to see him. Will you bring him in?" he continued,
commencing to pour out the tea.
"Yes; he is asleep now, but I will wake him up," she returned
nonchalantly, and, in spite of a protestation from me, she went out to do
so.
After a minute we heard loud screams from across the passage and
presently Suzee reappeared dragging (I can use no other phrase) in her
arms an enormous baby. Its face was red, and it was roaring lustily. The
girl-mother did not seem disturbed in the least by its cries, but
staggered slowly over to us, clasping the child awkwardly round the
waist and holding it flat against her own body.
It seemed very large, out of all proportion to the small and exquisitely
dainty mother. She was short and small, and the child really, as I
looked at it, seemed to be quite half the length of her own body.
"What a big boy he is," remarked Morley.
"Yes, isn't he?" said the mother proudly.
The baby roared its loudest, tears streamed down its scarlet face, and it
dug its clenched knuckles furiously into its eyes.
"Surely it's in pain," I suggested.

"Oh, he always cries when he is woken up," returned the mother
tranquilly. She did not seem to take the least notice of the child's
bellowing. She might have been deaf for all the effect it had upon her.
She stood there placidly holding it, though it seemed very heavy for her,
while the child screamed itself purple. She began a conversation with
Morley just precisely as if the child were non-existent.
I never saw such a picture, and it struck me suddenly I should like to
paint it, just as it was there, and call the thing "Maternity."
But no. What would be the good? No one, certainly not the British