" All those fixed types began to dash about and register the most
inconvenient emotions. Let me set down a few facts diary fashion.
To begin with, when I got up the next morning, Joe had disappeared. No
sign of breakfast, no smell of coffee. It was late for breakfast at
Dubois's, and I started out to get my own. There were no eggs, and I
sauntered over to French Eva's to purchase a few. The town looked queer
to me as I walked its grassy streets. Only when I turned into the lane
that led to French Eva's did I realize why. It was swept clean of
natives. There weren't any. Not a stevedore, not a fisherman, not a
brown fruit-vender did I see.
French Eva greeted me impatiently. She was not doing business,
evidently, for she wore her silk dress and white canvas shoes. Also, a
hat. Her face was whiter than ever, and, just offhand, I should have
said that something had shaken her. She would not let me in, but made me
wait while she fetched the eggs. I took them away in a little basket of
plaited palm-fronds, and walked through the compound as nonchalantly as
I could, pretending that I had not seen what I knew I had seen--Ching
Po's face within, a foot or two behind the window opening. It startled
me so much that I resolved to keep away from Stires: I wished to digest
the phenomenon quite alone.
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