Now, leaning back in the wicker chaise longue in which she spent so many hours, she toyed with the idea of making Chen love her. Then she frowned restlessly. What was the use of it? He would only want to marry her, and she did not want him. She was so cold to him for a few days that he felt relieved.
In the hospital as at home Mary was almost completely happy. That she was not altogether so was because of her sincere anger whenever one of the doctors failed to be as careful of the children under her care as she thought he should be. Dr. Kang especially she heartily hated and she quarreled with him often. He evaded her laughingly, secretly angered that she was not a nurse whom he could simply dismiss.
“Can I help it that I prefer adults to children?” he demanded one day.
“But a child!” she breathed at him hotly, her eyes filled with fury.
“I am a hardhearted wretch,” he agreed. “I am all that is hateful. But I do not like children.”
She retorted by never calling on him, and by insisting on James as the surgeon. It was her habit to dismiss from her thought and her life all whom she disliked.
One Saturday morning, as she was preparing to go home for the midday meal, she stopped at the hospital post office to fetch the mail, and there she found her mother’s letter. She took it out with warm pleasure. It was thick and it would be full of news, and they could read it aloud at the table together. She did not open it, therefore, thinking that to do so would be selfish. She tucked it into the bib of her apron, and later, it their noontime dinner, when their first hunger was over, he drew the letter out.
Saturday was always a pleasant day, for they did not hurry back to the hospital and Peter had a holiday from the college. This afternoon they had planned to walk to the chrysanthemum market. James had been a little late, and she waited for him to finish his first bowl of rice. Then she said, “Here is a letter from Ma.”
“Good!” James exclaimed. “I was secretly beginning to worry, for Pa has not written at all, although he promised he would.”
Chen rose. “I will go away,” he said politely.
James pressed him down, his hand upon Chen’s shoulder. “Sit down, sit down,” he said. “Now you are our brother.”
“There is no telling what is in Ma’s letters,” Peter said with mischief.
“I will go,” Chen said, starting to get up again.
“Stay,” James insisted, putting out his hand again.
Louise had taken no part in this. She continued to eat, her large discontented eyes downcast.
So Mary began to read. Every now and then she paused and turned the letter this way and that, for their mother’s writing was entirely individual and she went by sound rather than by the correct way of shaping a character. Upon this Peter gave some advice. “You make a mistake to examine Ma’s writing,” he said. “Take a deep breath as though you were about to run a race, and then go as fast as you can, by sense only, and not by sight.”
They laughed and Mary, in fun, did what Peter had told her to do. Thus she rushed straight into the part of Mr. Liang’s letter where she told of the possibility of a concubine and her determination to leave the house in such case. There Mary stopped. They looked at one another aghast. Even Louise was startled and put down her chopsticks.
“I told you I should not be here,” Chen said.
“Why not?” demanded Mary. “If Pa has been so foolish—”
“I do not believe it,” James said severely, but in his head he was dismayed to find that he was not sure that his father could not be foolish.
Peter turned to Louise. “You know Pa better than any of us,” he said. “Can you think of anyone who seemed — special to him?”
Louise looked thoughtful. It was painful to remember the gaiety of those days in New York in comparison with the dullness of her present life, but she forced herself to do so. “It is hard to think of anyone,” she said at last. “You know how women are about Pa. They gather in a circle so close to him — to hear what he says.”
“Louise!” Mary cried. “That is not Pa’s fault.”
Peter grinned. “Pa never pushes them away,” he remarked.
“Pa never puts his hand out to touch anybody,” Mary retorted.
Louise continued to look thoughtful. “I do think that Pa used to talk more to Violet Sung than to any of the others,” she said.
Peter groaned loudly. “Oh — that female!”
“Hush!” James said. “Who is Violet Sung?”
Louise cast a sidelong look at her brother. “She is a friend of Lili’s,” she said.
James compelled his face not to change. He had only once spoken to Mary of Lili. There had been but a few words. “Is — Lili married yet?” So he had asked Mary.
“No, she is not,” Mary had replied. “And please do not ask me about her. I never saw her except that once after you left.”
Since Lili had not written him one letter, it seemed folly to speak more of her. Yet he had wanted to talk about her, perhaps to heal his own heart. “I know that she and I could never marry,” he had said. “We would make each other very unhappy.”
“I am glad you see that,” Mary had said. Her round pretty face had looked so severe that he had said no more.
Now that he heard her name on Louise’s lips, however, it occurred to him that Louise was the one to whom he should have spoken. But this was not the time or the place. He put on his most elderly brother look and he said quietly, “In any case I feel sure that Pa will do no such thing. Give me the letter, Mary. I will finish it in private, and then I will write to him for us all. Of course if we are wrong about Pa, it is quite true that Ma must come to live with us.”
“Then I will go and take care of Pa,” Louise said eagerly. “I am sure Violet will not be a good housekeeper. She is very beautiful, in that French sort of way — she has always lived in Paris. And you know how Pa is — he’s very intellectual, but at the same time he’s used to the way Ma looks after him, and Violet would never put a hot-water bottle in his bed or see that his ties are cleaned and his shoes brushed.” Her face was eager and her eyes shone and they all pitied her, for they knew that it was not to their father that she wished to return. “Louise,” James said, “I wish to speak with you alone.” He rose and went into the other room, and Louise, pouting, followed him.
The others left behind ate what they wished for the remainder of the meal. Mary’s appetite was gone, and Chen, feeling sorry for her, had not the heart to seem hungry. With his chopsticks he picked a bit of meat here and a strip of vegetable there. When she put down her chopsticks he put down his and taking the tea bowl he went out into the court and rinsed his mouth thoroughly and spat behind the pine tree. Only Peter ate another full bowl of rice, and to him Mary talked in subdued angry tones.
“If I thought Pa really were so wicked, I would declare myself not his daughter,” she said. Every day in the newspapers in Peking daughters and sons declared themselves free of their parents, because, they said, these parents were too old-fashioned and did not have the interest of the nation at heart.