When she had finished her letter she sat quite thoughtfully for a long time. Then she got up and began to tidy the small drawers at the top of her bureau.
In something over half an hour she paused in this task, and opening the door of her room she heard the unmistakable sounds of a stick beating upon something soft. Then she heard screams — Louise’s voice — and almost at once her mother’s loud shouts. She ran downstairs swiftly and opened the door of her father’s study. He had his malacca cane in one hand, and with the other he held Louise by the hair. He had bent her back, but he held her head firmly while with his right hand he lifted the cane and struck it upon her shoulders. Mrs. Liang was vainly trying to put herself between the cane and the girl.
“My father?” Mary said distinctly.
Dr. Liang’s face was twisted and purple. But at the sight of his elder daughter he looked dazed and threw down the cane and pushed Louise away from him.
“Take her out of my sight,” he gasped. “I never want to see her again.”
Louise lay on the floor where she fell, sobbing aloud, and Mrs. Liang sat down in a chair. Sweat was pouring down her cheeks and she lifted the edge of her coat to wipe it away.
“Father,” Mary said again. The intense quiet of her voice seemed to bring silence and order into the room. “What you have done is not right.”
Dr. Liang had thrown himself into his leather armchair. His hands trembled and his face was ashen. “She is no longer my daughter,” he said. He looked with contempt upon Louise where she still lay weeping, her face buried in her arms.
“The American girls kiss boys and think nothing of it,” Mary pleaded. “Remember that she has been here all her life. You brought us here, Pa. We can’t remember any other country.”
“It is not only the kiss,” Mrs. Liang said heavily. “There is more than the kiss.” She spoke in Chinese but “kiss” she said in English.
“What has she done?” Mary asked. Her heart began to beat hard. Had Peter lied to her? Did he know?
“Don’t repeat it!” Dr. Liang shouted.
Mrs. Liang groaned aloud. “Eh-yah! I could not—”
Louise suddenly stopped weeping. She was listening. But she did not move and she lay, a figure of young sorrow, upon the floor.
Dr. Liang’s face began to work in strange grimaces. “Everything for which I have striven is now destroyed,” he said in a strangled voice. “I am about to be disgraced by my own daughter. My enemies will laugh at me. My students will deride the teachings of Confucius because my own daughter has derided them.”
Mary was sorry for them all. She stood with pity warm in her dark eyes. She understood her father’s pride and her mother’s bewilderment. And she understood very well Louise, who in eagerness to make herself beloved had confounded herself more than any.
“Pa,” Mary said gently. “I have thought of something. Let me take her back to China.”
“Two girls!” Mrs. Liang exclaimed.
Mary still spoke to her father. “Pa, James is your oldest son. Let him help you. I was about to ask you anyway if you would let me go and keep his house for him until he marries. Let me go and let me take Louise with me.”
Louise turned her face. “I don’t want to go!” she muttered.
“Be silent!” Dr. Liang cried. All his rage choked him again. “You! Do you dare to speak?”
“I won’t go — I won’t go!” Louise wailed.
Dr. Liang’s jaw tightened and two small muscles stood out on his cheeks. Had he not loved his younger daughter with so much pride he would not have been so bitterly angry now. He wanted to beat her again, but he dared not before Mary. Yet the wound of his proud heart was too severe. He could not restrain himself and he cried out, “If you do not want to go, then I say you shall go! We will have no peace until you are gone!”
“Liang!” his wife cried. “You cannot send two girls alone across the ocean! How will it be when they get to Shanghai? Since the war everything is bad there.”
“Peter shall go with them,” Dr. Liang cried. “Let them all go!” He slapped his outspread hands upon the desk, and then to the horror of his family he began to weep silently, without covering his face. They could not bear it. Mary stooped to her sister. “Come — get up,” she said. “We must leave Pa alone.”
Louise, seeing her father’s face, obeyed and the two girls went out. When the door closed behind them Mrs. Liang rose and went to her husband. She stood behind him where she could not see his face and she put out her two hands and with the tips of her fingers she began to rub his temples rhythmically. He sighed and leaned his head back against her breast.
After a while she spoke. “You must not blame them too much,” she said. “They are like plants growing in a foreign soil. If they bear strange flowers, it is the soil that is evil.”
“You know that I cannot — go back,” he said listlessly.
“I know that,” she said patiently.
“I cannot do my work there,” he went on. “What place is there for a scholar — for any civilized being — in the midst of chaos and war?”
“None,” she agreed. This they had talked about often.
“While chaos has raged in my own country, I have kept its spirit alive here in a foreign land,” he said in a heartbroken voice.
“Everyone knows you are a great man,” she said sadly.
He pulled away from her suddenly. “I suppose you wish you could go with the children,” he said. “You will be lonely here only with me.”
She stood motionless while she spoke, her hands at her bosom. “Liang — would you not go just for a little while?”
He pushed aside the sheaf of manuscript on his desk. “How can I? I have classes about to begin. Besides — how can I earn my living in China — unless I become an official?”
“You could become an official,” she said.
“No, I cannot,” he said loudly. “I can do a great many things for the sake of peace and our ancient civilization — but I cannot do that.”
She waited another long moment. She turned her head and looked out the window at all the things she hated. She hated living high in the air like this, as though they were birds nesting in a cliff. As a girl she had lived in houses low and close to the earth, where she could step through the open door and feel earth under her feet. She hated high buildings and tall chimneys and bustling streets. But her love for him was still greater than her hatred of these things, although she did not understand him even in the least part of his being. She had come from a simple, goodhearted merchant family in a small town. His family had been gentry for ten generations. She had been chosen for him because her health and vigor, his mother had said, would strengthen his overdelicate youth and renew the family’s vitality. She had loved him from their wedding night.
“If you cannot go, I will stay with you,” she said, “and I will not be lonely.”
Upstairs in her room Mary faced Louise. She tried not to be excitable or angry, but she found it difficult to be calm. Her father’s Confucian teaching of calm under all circumstances had become her conscience. Now, feeling her cheeks hot and her eyes burning, she nevertheless tried to keep her voice gentle.
“Louise, what have you done?” she demanded.
Louise sat down on the edge of the bed. She twisted a curl of her hair around her forefinger and pouted her red lips. She feared Mary more than any member of the family, not because this elder sister was harsh, but because she had an honesty which was not to be corrupted. Did Mary believe that something should be told she would tell it, at whatever cost to anyone, and Louise was not prepared to put herself into such danger.
“You had better tell me so that I can help you,” Mary said.