Colet, with his face to those lights, though now disturbed, sustained his faith that Penang somewhere must have a different roof to offer; and down by the waterfront, within a short distance of the quay where the adventure had begun, there it was. The hotel, except that its servants in their white uniforms were of the East, and that the building was adjusted, as well as was possible, to a temperature not altogether within the control of its management, might have been on the Riviera. As far as it could, it excluded the tropics. The hotel used its ingenuity to suggest that it was not where it was, looking out over the heated dark which brooded, with lightning glimmering in its roof, above the Strait of Malacca. When the bluish glare was vivid, then sleeping palms appeared in the foreground like tracings in ink on burnished metal.
XXIV
There was no difficulty, after all, in discovering a Mr. Ah Loi. The hotel people knew of him. Even a rickshaw man, when challenged, made almost satisfactory signs of intelligence. Colet viewed him suspiciously, speculating whether this was the genie of the night before, still hanging about in the hope of improved bewitchery. But Penang, on his first morning in Malaya, was superior to all the trickery of mortals. It was as fair as though this were the original daylight of the earth. The morning was certainly heated by a sun with pristine strength, but the air was perfumed, and it sparkled. He thought the sapphire between them and the island of Sumatra was younger, after all, than the tales of Marco Polo and the ancient voyagers. One junk was suspended in it, the first to explore that blue. As he rode through the bazaars and by the shrubberies beyond he was joyously confident that he was equal to the wiles of any Chinaman.
His man, this time, knew where to go, and turned in at a gateway flanked by a pair of porcelain beasts that were not dragons and ought not to have been dogs. Beyond a garden was a large pinkish house, not unlike a temple.
Its door was open, but the house, he was afraid, was deserted. Its interior smelt of teak, or some unusual wood. There was not a sound, except that of an insect making a dry whispering in the garden. The hall subdued its English visitor with its severe integrity, for its sombre panels receded in almost a bare perspective. It was relieved by only a few white silk hangings bearing delicate images of Buddha, water fowl, bamboos, and flowers. The tiled floor was muted with old rugs which made Colet forget, as he looked at them, why he had called. And he had called with the unthinking courage of a fellow bringing a bill of exchange. The fine texture and quiet of this interior began to reduce his confidence with the challenge of another order of things. There was no bell; should he clap his hands?
Apparently his thought had been heard, for a genie in a blue tunic approached him, and kowtowed in perfect gravity though it did not speak. It led him to an inner room and left him.
What at once was seen there, and nothing else, was a bowl of pale jade that appeared to give the silence a faint light, as though it were a lamp. It was honourably isolated and elevated, as though it were the significance of a poet. It was then that Colet noticed that the backs of his hands were not only moist with sweat, but a little hairy. He did not care to approach that luminous fragility; he looked about and saw by his side some shelves of books. They were as unusual as the bowl; perhaps they were even stranger, in that place. They were of European mathematics, philosophy, and theology, and though a chance collection of books on such subjects is placed, usually, where it will not be in the way, the names on the backs of those volumes betrayed a knowledge of the latest mental enterprises of the Occident which shook Colet’s confidence in the range of his own reading.
“You are interested in philosophy, Mr. Colet?”
How had that voice got there? Mr. Ah Loi was behind him. Interested in philosophy! Ah Loi had a friendly smile. He was a smile, but not much more than that; an interrogatory appraisement, tolerant and cheerful. His face was rather like his bowl of jade, delicate, pale, and bright. Colet would have preferred to wipe his hot large hands before taking the one which his host offered to him. This was confusing.
“It interested me to see those books here.”
“Why, Mr. Colet? Are they out of place?”
There it was. Colet knew his first words had been as hairy as his hands.
Ah Loi was not old. He was not young. His years were merely a clarity of the spirit. He spoke English as though his home overlooked an Oxford precinct. Behind him, no doubt the portière through which he had entered the room, were crimson silk hangings; they dropped in heavy folds from the high ceiling and were waved on the floor. They were lettered in gold with Chinese characters, and embroidered figures of men and dragons were ambushed in their coils. The slight figure of Ah Loi, in his western suit of linen, cool and friendly, with that draping of old China for his background, was as noticeable as a gentle word. Of course, Colet thought, this blessed Chinaman had those European books here to learn what the rude children were
