It was so amazing to see Chen, who was always ready for anything, thus confounded by love, and by love for Mary, whom he saw every day and whom he teased as easily as he breathed, that James was speechless for a few minutes, half amused, half impressed. In this silence Chen continued to talk. “Besides, how do I know she thinks of me as I wish her to do? It may be that she will need a little education — you know, someone to say to her for instance, ‘Eh, Mary, this Chen, who is such a rough joking fellow — at heart he is different. He is rather good. He is very faithful’—some such thing, Jim.”
“Shall I say this to her for you?” James asked.
“Will you, good brother?” Chen said, very red again in the face. “That is what I want to ask.”
“Why not? I will say that and much more.”
“You like me well enough?” Chen asked with a little new anxiety. “Your father, for example — would he object to me?”
“My father seems so far away that I had not even thought of him. As for me, you are already my brother, and I will gladly give you my sister to bring our two bloods into one.”
Chen sat back and he wiped his face with his sleeve and blew out a great sigh of relief. “Now then, I feel better,” he said in a loud voice. “Of course — I must not be too happy yet. She may not like me for a husband.”
“To this I cannot honestly reply,” James said. “I have never seen her thinking of any man or even of a husband.”
They considered Mary, and Chen asked excitedly, “Jim, eh — why not ask her now?”
“But she will be going to bed.”
Chen got up and looked through the court. “The light is still behind her window,” he said. “Eh — how can I sleep now until I know?”
“But how will you sleep if she does not want you?” James asked in reply.
This could not be answered. The two young men looked at one another. Chen was suddenly pale. He set his pleasant lips grimly. “I must know,” he muttered.
James lingered one moment more. “Then I will ask her,” he said, and he went to do it.
Mary was brushing her short straight black hair when she heard the knock on her door. She had taken off her outer garments and she had put on a bathrobe of red wool that she had brought with her from America. She opened the door and saw her brother.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I want a few minutes with you, Mary.”
“Come in,” she said. “But what is it that can’t wait until tomorrow?”
They were speaking in English, and somehow in this language he found it difficult to say what must be said, and he dropped back into Chinese. “I come for a strange thing.”
“What is it?” she asked still in English.
“I am a go-between, a marriage broker, and I bring an offer.”
“Don’t be silly!” she exclaimed.
“Is it silly? Perhaps it is,” James replied. “For I told him to come to you himself, and he cannot. He is shy of you when it comes to love.”
Did Mary know of what he was talking? He thought she did. Her eyes were wide and dark and her cheeks were pink and her lips parted. He waited for her to speak and she did not. She sat on the edge of her bed and he sat on the stool by her table and they continued to look at one another.
“Chen loves you, Mary,” he said simply and he spoke these words in English.
“Oh,” Mary said and it was a sigh, very soft, like a child’s.
“Is that all?” he asked.
“But — but how does he know?” she demanded.
“He seems to know,” James said tenderly.
She sat gazing at him, her cheeks pinker.
“And do you say nothing?” James asked.
“I am trying to find out how I feel,” she said. “I think I feel — happy.”
“Good! Take a little longer.” So he encouraged her.
They waited and he saw her eyes drop to her small bare feet. “I didn’t have time to put on my slippers. My feet are getting cold.”
“Where are they? I’ll find them for you.”
“No, they’re here, under the bed.” She found the slippers for herself and put them on.
“You ought to be careful on these earthen floors,” James said. He rose. “Well, shall I tell him that tomorrow you will speak to him yourself?”
She raised her long straight lashes. “Yes,” she whispered. She turned and picked up her brush again and stood watching for an instant the dark straightness of her hair.
“I want you to be happy, Mary,” he said at last.
“I am always happy,” she said with a look of sweet firmness which he knew so well, and he left her to go back to Chen.
He found that friend of his prowling restlessly around the room.
“How long you were!” Chen exclaimed.
“I wasn’t,” James retorted. “She hadn’t thought of it—”
“Hadn’t thought of me?” Chen moaned.
“Let us say — of marriage.”
Chen sat down as though his legs were suddenly weak. “But all women must marry,” he remonstrated.
“Not nowadays. Chen, you are too old-fashioned.”
“Then I suppose she doesn’t—”
“She wants to talk with you tomorrow herself.”
“You mean she didn’t—”
“She did not refuse you,” James replied slowly and clearly. “She is thinking. I daresay she will think all night. But knowing her, by tomorrow doubtless Mary will know what she wants.”
Chen groaned. “I shan’t sleep all night.”
“Then you will be foolish and tomorrow you will not look your best.”
Chen was alarmed. “True — I had better go to bed now.” He turned in haste and made off to his own room.
James lay awake long enough that night himself. This then was why Chen had been so well content here in the village. His love was here. A man could live and work if he had his love. His mind stole back to Lili — foolishly, he told himself, for she was married now and perhaps even the mother of a child. But he had known her for a little while as she was, and this fragment of memory was all that he had. There had been American girls in love with him, he knew well enough, but he had never loved them. When he had felt them grow warm toward him he had grown cold and had withdrawn into his work. Their flesh was alien to his. And yet was he to live solitary all his life? No, heart and body cried. Yet how could he find here a woman to love? He belonged neither to old nor to new. He wanted a wife who would be a companion to him as well as the mother of his children. He wanted love as well as mating.
He could not find an easy place that night upon his bed and it was nearly dawn before he slept.
But Mary lay quietly, in her bed. She lay on her back and she gazed up into the canopy above her. The moon shone outside and the room was not quite dark. The night was cold and still. It was midwinter. They had been here in the village a year. She had known Chen for more than a year. She had never thought of being in love, because being in love brought so much trouble. Louise was always in love, and Jim had been in love. She and Peter never fell in love, and Peter was dead. What was being in love? She had always thought of Chen and Jim together, but now she remembered she always put Chen first — that is, she always said it so—“Chen and Jim.”
Once Peter had reproached her. “Why do you say Chen’s name before your brother’s?” he had demanded.
She had stared back at him. “I don’t know,” she had said honestly.
She shut her eyes and thought of all the people she knew. Chen’s face came first against the dark curtain of her eyelids. When she wanted the schoolroom made she had gone to Chen, not James. They had worked hard but it had seemed like play. Chen made her laugh. Sometimes he made her angry, but then it felt good to be angry with him. He did not mind. She could be as angry as she wanted with him and he did not mind. She felt comfortable with him. She could be herself with him. Was this being in love? “I will ask him tomorrow,” she thought.