very devilry and roguishness she had so readily recognized.
There had been others like this one. Her job took her to the trouble
spots of the world, and men of this breed were attracted to the same
hot spots. With these men there was always the excitement and danger,
the thrill and the fun but inevitably there was also the sting and the
pain in the end.
She tried not to respond, wishing the ride would end, but Gareth's
sallies were too much for her and as the ricksha drew up in front of
the Royal Hotel entrance, she could not resist the almost suffocating
urge to laugh. She threw back her head, shaking her shining pale hair
in the wind as she let it ring out.
Gareth had learned also to use the calibre of a woman's laughter as a
yardstick. Vicky laughed with an unaffected gaiety, a straightforward
physical response that he found reassuring, and he took her arm
possessively as he helped her out of the ricksha.
He showed her through the royal suite with a proprietorial air.
'Only one suite in the place. Balcony looks out over the gardens, and
you get the sea breeze in the evening.' And, 'Only private loo in the
building, even one of those French jobs for sluicing the old
privates,
you know.' And, 'The bed is quite extraordinary, like sleeping on a
cloud and all that rot. Never experienced anything like it.'
'Is this where I am to stay?' Vicky asked, with a small-girl
innocence.
'Well, I thought we could make some sort of arrangement, old girl.' And
she was left with no doubts as to the type of arrangement Gareth Swales
had in mind.
'You are very kind, major,' she murmured, and crossed to the handset of
the telephone.
'This is Miss Camberwell. Major Swales is vacating the royal suite for
me. Please have a servant move his clothes to alternative
accommodation.'
'I say-' gasped Gareth, and she covered the mouthpiece and smiled at
him. 'It's so sweet of you.' Then she listened to the manager's
voice. 'Oh dear,' she said. 'Well, if that's the only room you have
vacant, it will just have to do then, I am sure the major has
experienced more uncomfortable billets.' When Gareth saw the room that
was now his, he tried honestly to remember humbler and less comfortable
billets.
The Chinese prison in Mukden had been cooler and not placed directly
over the boisterous uproar of the public bar, and the front line dugout
during the winter of 1917 at Arras had been more spacious and better
furnished.
The next three days Gareth Swales spent at the harbour, drinking tea
and whisky in the office of the harbour master, riding out with the
pilot to meet every new vessel as it crossed the bar, jogging in a
ricksha along the wharf to speak with the skippers of dhows and
Tuggers, rusty old coal-burners and neater, newer oil, burners, or
rowing about the harbour in a hired ferry to hail the vessels that lay
