The next day but one Sên sent back Miss Gilbert’s “confession-book,” and
with it a boxful of lilies-of-the-valley. He sent no message, no note,
not even a card. But the flowers and the book were under one cord-tied
cover.
They came in the early morning, and Ivy wondered what florist’s he’d
found open so early—until she glanced at her clock, and saw that it
lacked little of ten. She had danced until three, and had breakfasted in
bed—the children being excused from “school” today.
She heaped the lilies out on the coverlid beside her, and opened the
book. How queer the Chinese writing looked! Heathenish—but
picturesque—beautiful, even, she finally decided. Then she turned the
leaf and read and reread the English translation. One question that he
had answered in Chinese, he had left unanswered in English: “What is
your favorite woman’s name?” But, of course, his favorite woman’s name
was a Chinese name—and could not be translated into English. She turned
back and studied the Chinese character. It was exquisitely made, she
thought—almost as if the man’s hand and his brush had lingered tenderly
over it. Was it a sweetheart’s name? No—it couldn’t be, for he never
had so much as seen a Chinese girl—he’d said so that first night at
Miss Julia’s—and it had stuck in her memory because it had struck her
Western mind as at once the most absurd and the most preposterous thing
she had ever heard.
She wondered what this name he most liked sounded like. She’d ask
Charles to read it aloud to her. Probably Charlie didn’t pronounce
Chinese with impeccable Chinese accent, but she knew that he spoke that
language—or had spoken it some years ago—and no doubt he could read it
a little. She’d like to hear how that funny looking little name sounded.
It must be a short name—with just one character—that was what they
called them, she thought—in its writing: a chubby little name, if its
“character” at all depicted it—but neither unpretty nor ungraceful, for
delicate curves—almost hair-lines one or two—crossed and jutted out
daintily from its fat thicker sweeps of the brush. How unlike English
writing this Chinese writing was! Strange that inked makeshifts for
spoken words, so unlike as these that Mr. Sên had written in Chinese and
those he’d written in English were, could stand for the same things,
convey the same meanings! But did they? Were Chinese thoughts and
English—hearts, minds, emotions—in anyway one? The man she had ridden
with the other day had seemed so little un-English to her! And he had
found her a little Chinese—that first night at Miss Julia’s. Could
hands of the West and hands of the East meet now and then, after all, in
grip not altogether Eurasian and flabby? How interesting it all was! And
she’d never given it a thought before! How full of wonderful things the
world was—and life!
She stretched comfortably up on her pillows, and gathered a mass of the
exquisite flowers up to her face. Her soft hair lay loose about her,
clouding the cambric and torchon of her pretty nightgown, perfuming her
hair and her dimpled chin. Like all women who care for clothes in the
nicest way, care for the sense of soft fabric on soft skin, for the
beauty of texture and tint and line, for the clothes for the sake of the
reflection they give of a personal daintiness and taste, and not for
what they “show,” Ivy, obliged to skimp, skimped on outer garments that
others saw, rather than on those that only she and her mirror ever saw,
those that touched her intimately. Being young and raw she often was
ashamed of coat and skirt, or of dance frock less fresh and good than
were those of other girls, but she would have felt a grosser shame to
put coarse, roughly-trimmed calico against her skin, which being
sensible and not blind, she knew deserved its first sheath of covering
to be as nearly delicate as loom and needle could contrive. It was a
very pretty nightgown.
The bedclothes were both costly and beautiful. Emma Snow was
house-proud. And she was too nice a woman, and too proud in the best
sense, to house her husband’s girl cousin less well than she did
herself. This—the girl’s own room—less crowded than Emma’s luxurious
own, was not less well furnished or carefully appointed.
It was a pretty picture—the room and the girl in the bed.
She yawned happily and cuddled her lilies against her face. One spray
slipped from her hand, and lay inside the lace of her gown. The morning
sun came in rose through the window. And the rose in the girl’s brunette
face answered it, coming and going at her musing thoughts, with the
trick of rose ebb and flow that was so constant on her face, and was
half its charm—rarely a blush, but always a beauty. Her soft, dark
hair, all perfumed by the lilies’ sweetness, rippled over her pillows,
and shadowed her throat. One hand nursed lilies-of-the-valley, and so
did her cheek—one hand lay on the open confession-book, her filbert
nails lying pink on a page of Chinese characters.
Ivy Gilbert was a very pretty girl—more than pretty—face and body had
considerable loveliness, but her hands were her paramount beauty, as
hands always are, in every race, in the woman whose loveliness is
Nature’s deliberate achievement, and not just happily accidental.
Did lilies-of-the-valley grow too in China—the flowers she loved most?
And their perfume was always an intoxicant to her. Did they grow in
China? She’d ask Charles—or Mr. Sên. Mr. Sên who had not asked after
her the day before yesterday. Why should he? How silly Emma was!
“King-lo”—what a “given” name!
“Lo,” she said aloud—not very loud—and giggled softly at the sound, so
much less like a man’s given name than “Tom” or “Roger” or “Rupert.”
“Lo!” And yet—and yet—what about “Llewellyn” and “Silas” and “Jonas”?
She knew a charming man here in Washington whose name was “Silas.” She
rather thought that she’d prefer to call her brother—if she had
one—“Lo” to calling him “Silas” or “Llewellyn” or “Jonas.” And
“Heinrich”! Yes—she certainly’d rather own to a brother “Lo” than to a
brother “Heinrich.” “Sên”—“Sên” wasn’t so bad, really it wasn’t. She
thought it a far nicer name than “Watkins” or “Snider” or “Green” or
“Pink” or “Higginbotham.” “Lo.” “Jo.” “Jo”—she was rather fond of
“Jo”—much as she disliked “Joseph.” There were quite a lot of English
names she disliked. There was not much difference between “Lo” and
“Jo”—very little difference indeed. “Jo” was the nicer, of course—it
sounded more masculine, and it looked so. But—after all——
She drew the book nearer, and turned a page. How well this new Chinese
acquaintance—whom Charlie liked so much—wrote English. _And_ you could
read it! It was a “’varsity hand”—but perfectly legible, which so many
’varsity handwritings were not. It had all their hall-marks—the Greek
_e’s_, the quickness and smallness, the nice absence of flourish. But it
had individuality, and such courteous clearness! How English it was! It
seemed almost impossible that the man who wrote it was not English. She
turned back a page, and looked hard and long at the Chinese
signature—giggling again at the ridiculousness it looked to her.
Charlie said her giggle was like a Chinese girl’s! Well—what if it was?
Probably many Chinese girls were very nice—and were charming. She liked
Mr. Sên. The girls here in Washington were silly about him—and odious.
But she liked him in a sensible, straightforward way—as a sensible,
straightforward, and very interesting acquaintance. It seemed funny for
a man to have such small and delicate hands, but when he had swung her
up to her saddle she had felt his hand rock-sure and steel-strong under
her foot and her weight. How beautiful her lilies were—and how sweet!
The girl and her flowers made a pretty picture, as she lounged
there—even Chinese eyes must have thought so, could they have seen her
all rumpled, but dainty, as she lay there in her bed, thinking thoughts
she little knew, one hand holding the sweet flowers to her face—the
blue eiderdown heaped with them and their long green leaves—one hand
resting on a Chinese confession.