Evening star., 1924-06-08
The Honorable Sylvia


~ ROM the foot of her table in the
- shabby, grandiose dining room
of the Raff1eton residency, the
Honorable Sylvia could see.
over her husbands shoulder and
through the open window, a patch of
brilliantly moonlighted lawn which
had a gray stone in the middle of it.
She didn't mind the look of it so
much in the daytime 1t was at
night. under the moon, that it had
the power, sometimes. TO fascinate
her, to hold her eyes and not let them
get away.
Carew himself was just an ordi-
nary young Englishman with "A genius
for governing savage peoples that
had taken him out of the ordered life
of the Indian civil service and caused
him to be LOANED here and there as
the services of some such talent hap
pened to be required. Certainly Carew
was no sort of match for an earl's
daughter. and that is what Sylvia
was. Nevertheless Sylvia had not at
all got over being wildly in love with
him.
Carew had come back only the day
before from a two weeks excursion
into the jungle upon an errand of
peculiar danger and difficulty. He had
come back to find the South Asiatic
squadron OF the British fleet at an
chor in the Raff1eton Harbor and the
admiral and his staff being officially
entertained at the residency by his
wife. He had stuck a couple of
adh a
plaster, got out of khaki into cere-
monial white, and taken part in a
lawn party, dinner and an i'm
promptu ball. at which the meager
resources of their official society had
been supplemented by a handful of
planters and their wives, who had
come down the river in their motor
boats, or along the little narrow
gauge railway on their private hand
cars, pushed by perspiring coolies.
The squadron had steamed away
only this afternoon and the planters
had returned to their plantations. But
there remained two wandering Amer
leans, a man and his wife, who had
come into Raffleton about the time
the squadron did, in a ramsrackle
launch which they had borrowed from
the Brooks Mines, hundred and fifty
miles down the coast. and so there
was nothing for it but to bring them
up to the residency for dinner.
Sylvia was aware of them hardly
more than as presences interposed be-
tween herself and her husband and
keeping him a long way of. The
thing that startled Sylvia was the
realization that she was glad to have
them there in that capacity.
Even when the woman began talk
Ing about General Reyes, Sylvia still
felt that the subject was a respite
In that it engaged her husbands at
tention.
The General Reyes was an Ameri-
can cable ship and it was in the hope
Of getting transportation on her that
these two guests of theirs had come
to Raffleton themselves. AS it turned
out, the General Reyes had run into
the harbor the day before the squad
ron arrived, but stopped only long
enough to send boat ashore for her
mails and then steamed away again,
under urgent orders from Manila.
we felt pretty blank about that"
the man observed. '1t seemed just at
first as if we might about as we'll get
4 sarong and a kameja apiece and
settle down here perman emily; forget
that there was such place as Illi-
nois on the map
You can't expect us to be very
sympathetic about things like that"
the Honorable Sylvia said. Because
If they didn't happen, we'd hardly
over have any visitors at all. And
as long as we've just missed Capt
Burch, it is only right that you should
be provided instead"
The captain is a great friend of
ours" Carew added.
Their guests had only just met