“I like your wife,” she replied. “She gives me a feeling that is good.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“It is like firm hard earth under the feet.”
“You see what she is,” he said. “That is why I am always faithful to her. I do not pretend to be better than I am. My thoughts like to play sometimes — I own it. Ours was an old-fashioned marriage, made by our parents. Yet I insisted that she learn to read and write, and we met once before the wedding day.”
“What a moment!” she murmured in French.
“Yes, was it not?” he replied in the same language. Then he went on in Chinese. “I looked at her — short, even then a little fat, rosy-cheeked, and frightened of me.”
“So she is now,” Violet said, in Chinese again.
“I did not love her,” Dr. Liang said, “but I knew that she would be a good wife.”
“A good wife,” Violet repeated. “It is what such a man as you must have.”
Their eyes met and she laughed with a soft delight in him. “How Chinese are you!” she exclaimed.
Something naughty gleamed in the demure lines of Dr. Liang’s smooth face. “At the same time,” he went on, “there are other sides to my nature. A man’s mind, if he be intelligent, seeks also female companionship. Yang and Yin are not made of flesh alone. Mind and spirit are in the circle too. That is why I telephoned you today.”
He had never been so daring before. He had made clear to her that he had no wish for a passionate relationship. Nevertheless he had said boldly that he wanted a female mind to complement his, a female spirit to fulfill his. Whatever she was to the Englishman, he had implied, had no more to do with him than Mrs. Liang had to do with her. They could ignore such persons.
She understood and was pleased. Now these long musings of hers need not be entirely silent or lonely.
Dr. Liang leaned toward her slightly. “I should like to penetrate your mind with my own,” he said. “I should like to pierce the mysteries of your soul.”
12
MARY KNEW THAT HER FATHER’S LETTER had been mailed by her mother, for she had written a postscript. “While your father agrees to let you have his share of the Liang rents do not think it came out of him easily,” she wrote. “I stood at his side and I took the letter at once and I hastened from this foreign pagoda house in which we still live to put it in the box. I will not give it to the man in the up-and-down because doubtless he will steal the stamp. For myself I am glad you and your brother will have this money.”
Mary’s pleasure in being thus one step nearer to the village was tempered, however, by two events which were not so much events as something still going on. Louise was excited and Mary recognized certain signs within a few days after the return from the village. Her sister’s eyes were bright, her cheeks pink, her voice high, and she was easily angry as she had been in the Vermont summer. This could mean only one thing. Louise was falling in love again. It was as plain as though she were about to succumb to an illness, and Mary went to James the first evening that he was free to be at home. She had learned that it was useless to approach him in the hospital. There his mind was too busy to give her heed unless she brought the message of some new illness among the children she taught in the hospital school. Meanwhile she watched Louise who, it seemed, went nowhere and received no visitors.
“What have you done all day, Louise?” she asked each evening when she came home.
The answer was always idle. Louise had made a new dress, or she had washed her hair, or she had read a book or she had slept half the day away. Several times Mary, perceiving her sister’s excitement, wondered if she had had a secret visitor. She was sorely tempted to inquire of Young Wang, but antipathy forbade it. Young Wang still disliked a mistress in the house he served and often he pretended not to hear what Mary told him. When she complained to James of this he only laughed. Of Little Dog no one could inquire for he would lie as the moment demanded. Little Dog’s mother also was too frightened of everybody and everything to be worth talking with. Therefore was Mary constrained to wait until such a day as James came home with the cheerful look on his face which meant that he expected no one in his care to die at least before morning.
On that evening after they had eaten and Louise had gone early to bed and Peter had gone to a meeting of students at the college, Mary found herself alone with James and Chen. She pondered whether she should speak in Chen’s presence, since she imagined him half in love with Louise secretly. When he left them for a moment, therefore, she took her chance and said quickly in English, “Jim, I am sure Louise is in love with somebody again.”
James lifted his eyebrows. “This time with whom?” he inquired. Yet strangely he did not seem surprised.
“Who knows? Unless it is with Chen?”
James shook his head. “Not with Chen.”
At this moment Chen came back, and James went on easily. “Chen, Mary thinks that Louise is in love with someone.”
Chen looked thoughtful at once, as though he knew more than he wished to tell. “I can see that Chen agrees with you,” James said, turning to Mary.
It was an evening too cold to sit in the court, and they were gathered in the main living room of the house. Young Wang had bid Little Dog light a brazier of charcoal, and this was heat enough for the early season although in the corners of the room the air lurked chill enough to make them talk of going to the thieves’ market to find a big American stove.
The oil lamp burned on the table and gave a soft yellow light to the walls. Mary had cut a stalk of Indian bamboo with its scarlet berries, and this stood upon the table in an old brown jar. The room looked cheerful and warm.
To Chen this was exceedingly precious. “I do not like to see any change in this house,” he said sadly, “but we must all perceive now that Louise is not here with her heart.”
“Yet I never see her with anyone,” Mary said.
“Young Wang has already told me that she leaves the house every afternoon,” James said quietly. “He says she meets an American.”
“An American!” Mary echoed, stupefied at Louise and her deception. Then she was hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded of James.
“Because you are such an impetuous little thing,” he replied, looking at her with eyes both fond and humorous, “because you are like a brimming cup, always ready to spill over, or a small firecracker, ready to explode—”
He dodged Mary’s open palm, and Chen put out his hand and pretended to give James a mighty slap. They laughed and settled down again, and Mary’s face took on its look of lively concern.
“But why does Louise hide it from us?”
“I suppose she thinks that since Pa sent her here to get away from Americans, we would prevent her,” James said. He was smoking his old American pipe and suddenly he looked weary.
“We must stop her!” Mary exclaimed.
This James did not answer. He continued to smoke, his eyes very dark.
Now Chen began to talk gravely. “Several things begin to be plain to me,” he said. “That boy child at the hospital — Mary, have you looked at him lately?”
“He is quite well,” Mary said with surprise. “The nurses care for him and not I, as you know, but every day I pass his crib and he is sleeping or eating or lying awake. He cries in such a loud voice.”
“Louise went to see that child,” Chen said cautiously.
James took the pipe from his mouth. “There is no reason why you should shield Mary now,” he told Chen. “We had better tell her everything.” They were still speaking in English, lest a servant overhear them.
But it was no servant who overheard. Louise, always sensitive to Mary’s watchfulness, had seen her sister’s eyes follow her thoughtfully as she left the room that night. She had thrown her good night gaily at the three who sat on after Peter had gone, and when she said she was sleepy Mary had not answered. Mary had only looked at her with large quiet eyes, too full of thought. Therefore Louise knew she would not be able to sleep. In a few minutes she had stolen with noiseless feet along the corridors and had hidden herself behind the curtains which divided one room from another. Now she heard what was being said, and filled with horror, she fled back to her room. There she put on a coat and outdoor shoes and still silent she slipped through the dark court, passed the latticed door of the living room, now closed against the sharp night air, and thus she went on through the gate. In the alley she was frightened but she went on to the street where she waved to a passing ricksha. Seated in it, she directed the puller to the house of Dr. and Mrs. Su.