Mrs. Su was her only friend. At her house she met Alec every day. Dr. Su knew nothing of it, but Mrs. Su welcomed the excitement of the romance. All Mrs. Su’s best friends knew about the rendezvous, and most of them had told their husbands. Therefore in the hospital nearly everyone knew that Dr. James Liang’s younger sister was meeting an American, who had returned to Peking after his discharge as a soldier, because he had been in love with a Chinese girl, a nobody, who had died in the hospital after giving birth to a boy who was now a hospital foundling. Louise thought her secret safe with Mrs. Su, and no one had told James or Mary, and no one told Dr. Su because everybody liked the new little Mrs. Su and nobody liked him. The Chinese gossiped prudently. Where it did not matter all was told and discussed, but beyond prudence no one went.
The danger tonight, Louise reminded herself as the ricksha carried her through the darkness, was that Dr. Su was at home. It was only good fortune that could prevent this. Alas, such fortune was not hers. When she had paid the ricksha man and had entered the brightly lit foreign-style house that stood beside the street, she heard Dr. Su’s voice. It was Mrs. Su, however, who came out to meet her when the servant announced her.
“My brother and sister know!” Louise whispered.
At this moment Dr. Su came to the door. “Miss Liang!” he called with the bantering smile that was his approach to all young and pretty women. “Have you run away from home?”
Louise tried to laugh. “I am really only on my way somewhere else,” she said. “I just stopped to see if Mrs. Su would come with me.”
“Where?” Dr. Su asked with ready curiosity.
“Some foreign friends,” Louise said, frightened that everything she said was too near the truth.
“Don’t go, don’t go,” Dr. Su exclaimed. “Stay here with us.”
“Then I must telephone,” Louise said, seizing upon the chance.
Mrs. Su was immediately helpful. “Su,” she said to her husband, “please return to our other guests. I will take Louise to the study.”
Dr. Su turned away and Mrs. Su led Louise into the small study where the telephone stood on the desk and she closed the door.
“Now,” she whispered, “what will you do? Your brother will be angry with my husband if he finds that I have let you meet Alec here. You know I like to help you, Louise, but I must think of my relations with my husband. Su has a very bad temper.”
“You mean Alec mustn’t come here tonight?” Louise faltered.
“He must not come any more if your brother knows,” Mrs. Su said. Her small pretty face was pale. “You know, Louise, what you do may be all right in America but here it is serious. And I am my husband’s fourth wife. He is not too patient with me. Such a fine man as Su with a good job can get plenty of women to marry him.”
Louise felt her heart grow hard toward Mrs. Su and all Chinese women, but she asked, “May I telephone?”
“Certainly that,” Mrs. Su said quickly.
“Then please — may I be alone?”
Mrs. Su hesitated. “I ought better to stay here,” she said, “but then I like to say I didn’t know anything about it. I will stand outside the door.”
So saying she went out and closed the door and Louise called the hotel where Alec Wetherston was living. His voice answered, a pleasant tenor at whose sound her lips quivered.
“Alec, it’s me — Louise.”
“Why, darling!” His voice took on depth. “Where are you?”
“At the Su house. Alec, my brother and sister know about us.”
There was silence for a long moment and she said anxiously, “Alec, do you hear me?”
“Yes, I was just thinking fast, darling.” His voice was somewhat breathless. “What will they do?”
“I don’t know but I’ve got to see you.”
“Shall I come over there?”
“Mrs. Su is afraid.”
“But what’ll we do, darling? I suppose you couldn’t come here to the hotel?”
“People would recognize me — you know how they are.”
“I could meet you at the hotel door and we could walk.”
“All right — in fifteen minutes.”
She hung up the receiver and went out into the hall. Mrs. Su was still standing there, watching the door of the living room. A burst of laughter pealed out.
“I am going home,” Louise said. “Just tell Dr. Su I had to go on, after all.”
The two young women tiptoed down the hall; Mrs. Su opened the door, and Louise went out. She was beginning to be frightened because for the first time in her life she was acting quite alone. In New York there had always been Estelle to praise her for her independence and here, until now, there had been Mrs. Su. Now she had no one. Estelle was far away and Mrs. Su was a coward, like all Chinese — cowards when it came to real courage. How she hated being Chinese herself! She must go back to America. If she married an American she could be an American, almost. At least her children would be American and she, their mother — it was her only escape.
The dusty wind blew down the wide street. It was several minutes before she could find a ricksha in the dim light. With nightfall and cold the Chinese went inside their houses and put up the boards. All the open gaiety of the city in summer was gone. She felt still more frightened when a wild-looking old man pulling a dirty ricksha offered it to her, but seeing no other she got in. He ran slowly as though he were too weary to walk, and when he let the shafts down at the hotel gate, his face glistened with sweat and his cotton jacket was streaked with damp. She ought to pity him she told herself, but he only repelled her and she gave him as little money as she dared. He was too exhausted to protest beyond a moan and a grimace at the money outspread on his grimy palm. She paid no heed to him and walked quickly up to the door. Then her heart was released. She had been afraid that Alec would not be there but he was waiting for her, his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled down.
“Hello,” he said in a guarded voice. “You were a long time coming. I began to freeze.”
He put his arm into hers and they walked down the street. “Tell me everything,” he said.
Who could have foretold what now happened? Before she could reply six or seven students coming along the half-lit street saw a Chinese girl walking with an American. They surrounded the pair swiftly and a flashlight in the hands of one thrown upon the girl revealed Louise’s pretty face. “You American man!” a student shouted. “Leave our girls alone!”
Then incredibly the students began to hustle them. Alec felt himself pushed against a wall. He put Louise behind him to shield her, but the yelling students were trying to pull her out from behind him.
“We’ll have to cut and run,” he said to her over his shoulder.
Where could they go in this whole city?
“We’ll have to go home,” Louise said.
“When I start, you keep up with me,” Alec commanded. “Come now — get ready — get set — let’s go!”