Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/39

 were visitors: an old man in a black morning coat and white hair and beard, and a woman in black crêpe-de-chine, with the inevitable hat of her sort upon her grey hair: a stiff satin turned up on three sides and with black ospreys underneath. She had the baby face and the faded blue eyes and the middle-west accent inevitable.

“Judge and Mrs Burlap.”

The third visitor was a youngish man, very correct and not quite sure. He was Major Law, American military attaché at the moment.

The three people eyed the newcomers with cautious suspicion. They might be shady. There are indeed so many shady people in Mexico that it is taken for granted, if you arrive unannounced and unexpected in the capital, that you are probably under an assumed name, and have some dirty game up your sleeve.

"Been long in Mexico?" snapped the Judge; the police enquiry had begun.

"No!” said Owen, resonantly, his gorge rising. "About two weeks.”

"You are an American?"

“I,” said Owen, "am American. Mrs Leslie is English—or rather Irish.”

“Been in the club yet?”

"No,” said Owen, “I haven’t. American clubs aren’t much in my line. Though Garfield Spence gave me a letter of introduction.”

"Who? Garfield Spence?" The Judge started as if he had been stung. "Why the fellow’s nothing better than a bolshevist. Why he went to Russia!"

"I should rather like to go to Russia myself," said Owen. “It is probably the most interesting country in the world to-day.”

"But weren’t you telling me," put in Mrs Norris, in her clear, metal-musical voice, "that you loved China so much, Mr Rhys?"

"I like China  much," said Owen.

“And I’m sure you made some wonderful collections. Tell me now, what was your particular fancy?"

"Perhaps, after all,” said Owen, "it was jade.”

“Ah jade! Yes! Jade! Jade is beautiful! Those wonderful little fairy-lands they carve in jade!”