She had not at all liked the way that James had listened to this. He had not answered but he had smiled. Smiling silence is not a good sign in any man when he has been listening to a woman.
“Now, James,” she had then said with real heat, “I don’t oppose Uncle Tao so much. Everybody is still afraid of him. You better stay in his shadow. These are bad times.”
To this James again had not answered and so she had talked to Mary and Chen. “You two,” she had said to them privately and therefore in English only last night when they came in for a last talk. “Now you are married you have some common sense. I tell you, do not make Uncle Tao angry.”
“I am not afraid of Uncle Tao,” Mary said boldly.
Mrs. Liang looked at her with cold eyes.
“Everybody else is afraid. You better have some sense.”
Chen had pacified her immediately. “Mother, I will not let Mary behave foolishly,” he had promised. “Uncle Tao is a very big man here and certainly we need him, at least until we have established ourselves and the people see what we are doing for them.”
“I hope he does not die first from that knot in his belly,” Mrs. Liang had murmured. Then she had made a confession. “At first when I saw Uncle Tao is growing thinner and more yellow, I thought I better tell him let James cut him up. Then I tell myself, very good idea, but maybe James kills him, then who will protect my children here? Better I let him die slowly by himself.”
Chen roared out great laughter but Mary was shocked. “Ma, how can you be so wicked?” she had demanded. “Poor old Uncle Tao! I swear I like him more now than I did before you said such a thing. I shall try myself to persuade him to let James help him.”
Mrs. Liang sighed now, remembering this scene. Since she was married Mary had grown even more stubborn. If there was fault to be found with Chen it was that he did not deal firmly enough with his young wife. He laughed at her too much instead of scolding her. Mary had none of the softness which was so pleasant in Louise since she had married Alec. Mrs. Liang pondered on the strange contradictions in young people. One would have thought that Mary married to a Chinese husband would have become a docile Chinese wife. Instead, although she lived in the ancestral village, she behaved like an American, and without doubt she was planting rebellion in the hearts of many Chinese wives. But Louise, living in an American house, where women could be as willful as they liked, had grown sweet and obedient, as though she were in China. The world was very mixed nowadays!
The propellers had been whirling for some time, and now the engines were hammering and Mrs. Liang clutched her quivering stomach. She stopped thinking about her family in the ancestral village and her family in America and prepared to think only of herself.
Alone in his big apartment, except for Nellie rattling faintly in the distant kitchen, Dr. Liang was grateful for the added weeks before Mrs. Liang came back. Had she arrived on the appointed day she would have found him in the midst of his pain and distraction. He was still confused, still sore at heart, but pride and vanity were quelled, and he was able to be grateful that Violet Sung had made the decision. It was the wise decision for them both, although he had rebelled against it with his whole being. Indeed, after these weeks of utter solitude and quiet, he was somewhat astonished to look back on himself as he had been. He was still more astonished that he could have gone to London after Violet, as he had done. He leaned back in his deep red leather chair. Well, he had his memories—
After Mrs. Liang had gone, he had really lost his head. It was the only way he could describe it now. He had felt so free, so gay. The New York season had come on, and since he had no one to think of except himself he went everywhere. The most extraordinary thing was that he learned to dance. This would have been impossible had his wife been at home. Her astounded eyes would have accused him of unseemly behavior in his old age. But Violet had taught him and had praised him for his lightness. His one fault, which it seemed was a grave one, was that he had no sense of rhythm. When he was dancing with Violet, she supplied this for him, so that he had a feeling of dancing rather well. Since he was tall and he knew his own good looks, it was a pleasure to feel that people admired them together.
He supposed that they were together somewhat too much and therefore the Englishman was not to be blamed. Still, there had been nothing physical about it. There was no use denying, even now when everything was over, that there might have been. He had entered into a new phase, he told himself. He had been married so long and suddenly he had felt as though he were young and starting all over again. He refused Louise’s invitations to come to dinner, and he had not invited her and Alec to dinner, simply because he did not want even to remember that he had children.
Yet he had felt no evil. On the contrary, never had he felt so exalted, so noble, so good as he had during those days when he and Violet saw one another every day. Yes, it was every day! He had not tried to write anything, although he had begun a new book, an anthology of Chinese love poetry. He taught his classes, of course, and he felt his teaching was inspired. Marriage, he then realized, had never inspired him.
After nearly three weeks of this well-nigh perfect happiness Violet told him one day over the telephone that she could not see him. She had said something about a headache and a cold. The next day she had called him again, and had said she was flying to London.
All the misery of that moment overwhelmed him again in memory. “But why?” he had kept insisting.
She had answered vaguely that she would write and that it would be better for them not to meet. She would tell him everything.
He had destroyed the letter, but first he had carried it with him to London, and when he had seen her for the last time he had torn it in bits and dropped it from Westminster Bridge where they had met — wishing, but only almost, that he could throw himself after it. The letter had been unsatisfactory to him. She had not told him everything as she had said she would. She had simply said that Ranald Grahame had told her that unless she stopped seeing Dr. Liang, he would cut her off. She had thought about this carefully, she wrote him, and in view of all the lives involved, it seemed better to stay with Ranald. But she was his, always faithfully, Violet Sung. And there was no address below her name.
By the time he had this wretched letter in his hands she was already gone. He was beside himself and so badly did he conceal it that he caught Nellie’s eyes on him hard that day and so he told her he was ill and locked himself in his room. She stopped at the door with the tray and he had to get up and get it, because she declared since they were alone in the house she had better not come into his bedroom. He was insulted at the evil suggestion in this intense virtue but he could do nothing about it, and it insured him privacy when his door was shut.
Twenty-four hours of solitude made the desire to see Violet, to talk with her and to demand her return to him, grow into a ravening hunger in his bosom. He did not care what anyone thought and he would divorce his wife, or at least command her to stay on forever in the ancestral village. He arranged his affairs and told Nellie that he had had a summons from London. This summons he provided for by cabling to old Mr. Li to ask if he might stay with them. The invitation came back at once and he left the cablegram on the dining-room table where Nellie would read it. He used the power of his famous name in the Chinese Embassy and got a priority seat and flew to London within the week.