They rode the next day, and Ivy suggested “a Washington ride,” but Sên
laughed and turned Sinbad towards the Potomac, across the bridge, into
the icicled country roads.
No mention was made, of course, as none had been made the evening
before, of the cancerous rumors with which society’s amiable chit-chat
had been teeming for weeks, and the ugliest detail of which Emmeline had
retailed shrilly yesterday as Sên stood within unavoidable earshot in
Lady Snow’s drawing-room. But they felt a deeper companionship today
than they had before; a more basic and secured good-fellowship,
absolutely devoid of sentimentality, as little fettered or fed by sex as
waxing comradeships between a man and a girl, congenial and heart-free,
can be; a good-fellowship not unlike the friendship of Sên and Charles
Snow, wholesomely and strongly rooted in a mutual respect which both
felt could neither be destroyed nor damaged.
In spite of the cold, they rode slowly now and then. For the
winter-kissed waysides were indescribably lovely, and Sên King-lo could
not pass that loveliness quickly by. To him it was as if God had painted
in silver and white and black the long out-rolled picture of the
inimitable landscape’s scroll; painted and limned it, and breathed His
high living message into it more supremely, more beautifully, than ever
even the master-brush of great Ma Yuen had. They spoke to Sên King-lo
and tingled his Chinese soul: the long sweeps of glorious panoramic
beauty, with each tiniest black leafless twig softened by cuddling
little drift-patches of spotless snow and sparkling with diamond
dew-drops of ice. To the English girl it looked just fairyland,
exquisitely beautiful, quite unreal—and she heard no message. Such the
difference of her Western spirit and eyes and his of the East. She saw
it a wonderful spectacle and was glad she’d come; he merged in it, and
forgot self—and was silent. And from his silence, the far-look in his
eyes, the slight flush on his face, she caught something of his mood,
too, perhaps, _just_ a something of his spirit. They never before had
been so close—or so far. She echoed his pleasure, but could not share
his absorption; she alien here, in the white Virginia woods, with snow
and thin gleams of ice where ice and snow come but rarely, the white
passion of December rapturously calling Earth its bride. Sên King-lo
felt at home; for the hour, no longer afar from China. Not once in many
years does winter show so in England. In his Chinese home Sên had seen
winter so a thousand times.
They lingered—but as the sun sank, backing the black and gray
tree-trunks with royal colors, they turned back towards the city. As
they neared it the girl turned her head at the quick clatter of hoofs
behind them—gaining upon them, almost, she thought, as if in pursuit.
Again today no groom was with them.
She saw who it was and turned her head back with an impatient frown on
her face but said nothing.
Sên King-lo did not see Reginald Hamilton until Hamilton drew his horse
neck and neck with Sên’s.
Hamilton did not lift his hat, and King-lo’s slim fingers tightened
slightly on his riding-crop.
Reginald was winded, a little. He was no great horseman, and he had been
drinking—though not to excess. It was physical inconvenience and
personal emotion that quivered and belched him far more than bourbon and
bitters.
“I’ll deal with you later, you yellow, opium-sodden chimpanzee,” he
cried thickly, with an insulting motion of his whip. “Be off with you
now! I’ll not allow you to ride with this lady. Don’t let me catch you
so much as speaking to her again, you vermin-fed laundry whelp!
Understand?”
Sên smiled slightly, his eyes perfectly quiet, and turned to the girl
beside him.
“Please ride on a little, Miss Gilbert,” he asked easily. “I won’t be a
moment.”
“No,” Ivy told him. “I stay with you. Are you going to kill him?”
“In _your_ presence? No, not even whip him—merely set him on his feet.
Please go. I’ll be with you almost at once.”
Ivy did not answer him. She had grown very white—but not with fear, not
even with nervousness, Sên knew. She sat perfectly still, and she did
not move or speak again.
Reginald raised his whip, a little unsteadily.
The Chinese man leisurely threw his reins over one arm, the loop of his
crop over one finger, leaned lightly a little from his saddle, caught
Reginald Hamilton by the arms, and swung him down to the ground—not
roughly—setting him square on his feet.
Sên gave the riderless horse an imperative but friendly tap on its flank
with his crop, and it started off at a slow trot.
Reginald stood stock-still; purple, spluttering, wordless.
“I hope it’ll find its stable,” Sên said to Ivy lightly. “I daresay it
will; they usually do. Shall we walk our horses on, Miss Gilbert?”
They went on in silence, and after a few moments, because he saw how
white and cold the girl’s face looked, Sên set a faster pace, and they
kept it until, as they passed the Louise Home, Ivy slackened her reins
and looked at him with a tinkle and gurgle of girlish laughter, which
Sên King-lo, as Sir Charles did, always thought had a sound of China.
He looked at her with a question in his smile.
“I was thinking,” she told him—“I don’t think you’ll mind, we are good
friends——”
“The best of friends,” Sên King-lo said gravely, holding his hat in his
hand as he spoke.
“I was thinking of your hands, Mr. Sên, and of a silly thing I thought
the first time we met—in the summer—at Miss Julia’s——”
“I have not forgotten where I first saw you,” Sên said, with no hint or
sound of hidden meaning.
“Your hands—they are different—you know”—Ivy hesitated a little.
“Chinese,” Sên said.
“Yes,” the girl nodded, “and not very thick, and I wondered—that night
at Miss Julia’s—how much use they’d be at fisticuffs. I know now, Mr.
Sên.”
She let the chamois loop on her riding-crop just fleck the hand on his
horse’s bridle as she spoke, her eyes freemason friendly on him.
Sên lay his hand on her pommel for a moment. “Chinese hands,” he told
her, “that always will serve to take care of you when you allow me to be
your escort.”
“I know that,” the girl said quietly.