Sên Ruben heard some one running after him up the Peach-tree Hill,
turned and saw that it was Sên Toon, but scarcely recognized him. Toon
took the tiny trickling brook with a merry leap, and Toon’s face was
glowing; Sên Toon’s eyes were triumphant.
“Strike me, Sên Ruben, strike me for a dolt and monster!” Toon cried
half in shame, but all in gladness, panting a little from the pace
he’d come. “Forget my silly railings. Never remember them, I entreat
thee, O Sên Ruben. She is carved out of opal; she is made of roses;
all the odors of the peaches of the garden of immortality perfume her.
Oh, I have done penance at her feet. Her _feet_, Sên Ruben! They are
loveliest in China. All of her is loveliest in all the world. And she
is kind and sweet as she is beautiful. I am drunk with happiness. My
wife is the twin of my soul, the gold glory of my existence. If I go
on-High to-morrow I have lived an eternity in Paradise since last we
spoke together, thou and I. But pray all the gods, pray them hard, I
entreat thee, that I live to nurse my son-ones and their son-ones in my
arms; the love-buds of my celestial marriage.”
Sên Ruben promised to do it, deeply glad that marriage had blinded
Sên Toon. Only blindness could account for this. He remembered the
bride-one’s face quite clearly. Then suddenly he remembered the old Sên
woman’s contented chuckle as she had looked down on Sên Toon from the
lantern-hung casement. Did Madame Sên know of some necromancy of which
he never had heard? This was witchcraft or sheer madness. Better so, if
it could last! But it could not. It must pass, and then life would sour
again for poor Sên Toon, more bittered than before. Probably Sên Toon
would travel then, far and long, if Sên Wing-lu, his father, and Sên
Wed O the regnant Madame Sên would let him. Poor girl! Ruben was sorry
for her, widowed by her husband’s absence and repudiation. Of course
Toon could divorce her--there were ways--but Ruben had not heard that
ever a Sên had done it. Certainly it was not a Sên way.
Sên Toon babbled on. There was no need for Ruben to speak; Sên Ruben
was glad that there was not. Nor did Sên Toon stay long.
“You must see her. She will greet you kindly for my sake, and you
will envy me her beauty. You shall see her soon--at our picnic among
the graves--it draws near, and this year our women are coming with
us to make merry among the tombs when we have finished our pious
worshiping. You shall see my treasure, Sên Ruben, and our happiness.
Until then”--and Sên Toon was running down the Peach-tree Hill, over
the brook, across the scented meadows like a drunken lapwing. Sên Ruben
shrugged, wondering, and, with odd perplexity darkening his fair face,
watched Toon out of sight.
At the picnic among the graves some days later young Mrs. Sên Toon
made her real family _début_ among the Sêns. Only her own maids and
her infatuated husband had really seen her until now. The wives of
the family had visited her formally as she sat all but speechless on
her painted ivory bed, in her own room with peacocks’ feathers strewn
thickly on its lacquered floor; and she had served them herself with
tiny cups of boiling tea and thickly sugared sweetmeats; but the girls
and children had not seen her at all, and no Sên man except Sên Toon
had. But she came to the picnic, carried there in a litter almost as
gay as her bride’s chair. And when the prostrations at the graves
were done, and done, too, the ceremony of introducing her to all
these graves of Sên, she made merry with them all, as merry as No Fee
herself, and No Fee was in wild frolic mood to-day.
The men were presented to her, and she to them, one by one, as was now
their right, for she now was of their blood, a Sên woman, living in the
Sên ladies’ _kuei_. Sên Toon was vastly proud and showed it, pulling
at an imaginary beard with all the pomp of a thrice-wived graybeard.
The bride’s girlish face was flushed with shy happiness as well as
crusted with paint. Certainly she was pigeon-plump, but not so plump as
Sên Ruben had thought; she had a dimple or two. Ruben suspected that
she had charm, and he saw the softness of her eyes that followed Sên
Toon whenever he moved away from her a pace--her eyes did not follow
Sên Toon often. Sên Ruben wondered how he had thought her so plain.
She lacked Ivy’s loveliness; she lacked No Fee’s; a hundredfold she
lacked the loveliness of the pictured face that had fired his soul and
twisted his blood; but the girl was not exactly plain. When the picnic
boxes were unpacked and the flasks unstoppered she served her young
lord meekly; but Ruben saw her eyes sparkle down into Sên Toon’s and
saw Toon put a titbit or two between her lips. He saw Toon’s fingers
linger at their task, saw them tremble, too, as his bride knelt beside
her lord pouring amber wine into his amber cup. Sên Ruben doubted that
Sên Toon ever would wander far from his little wife-one’s courtyard.
Perhaps Chinese-way Chinese marriage was best, after all--for the Sên
Toons of China who never had looked upon utmost girlish loveliness on
an English canvas.
Mrs. Sên Toon accepted them all, and they all accepted her. She flew
her kite as well as No Fee flew hers, and her little fluted laugh
was silver as she chased the babe-ones between the graves, or played
“butterflies” with them, and played blindman’s buff through the pink
and cream pampas grasses. Sên Ruben did not envy Sên Toon, not even the
feet of his bride, but he thought her a nice little thing. Sên Ruben
concluded that Sên Toon’s wife would do.
The moon came up in molten splendor before the Sêns lighted their
scores of needless lanterns and, having made obeisance once more at
their ancestors’ graves, went singing home.
* * * * *
As they neared their gates, an unattended horseman passed them. The
ladies veiled their faces quickly--all but No Fee. No Fee stood
stock-still and watched the sash-wearer squarely as he rode slowly
past. Sên Kai Lun’s face was thunderous; but thunder never had
frightened No Fee, least of all on the face of her father. She caught
his sleeve and tugged it hard. “Who is yon lord?” she demanded.
“What’s that to thee, plaguesome wanton-one? Cover thy face!”
No whipped a film of gauze-scarf across a segment of her face, and
laughed roguish eyes at Sên Kai Lun across it.
“Gods!” muttered Sên Kai Lun. Perhaps he knew what was coming, felt it.
And instantly Sên Ruben suspected.
“_Who is he?_ You know him, my honorable father.”
“Your _dishonorable_ tool-one!” Sên Kai Lun almost sobbed.
“Hey, he was beautiful,” No Fee sighed. “I would wed with him. Send him
your _mei jên_.”
“Never!” Sên Kai Lun ripped out with an oath.
“I choose it,” No Fee told him softly. “Who is he? I will not be denied
to know his beautiful, honorable name.”
“His name is the name of a toad, his family are thieves, his father is
a hyena.”
No Fee laughed very softly. “I told you you knew him; the beautiful,
beautiful lord-one.”
“This person knows him not,” Sên Kai Lun said sulkily.
“Tush,” said No Fee, “you know who he is.”
“Be done, girl. I know him not. But his fox face is the face of the
viper Lun Koo Yêh as I knew it long ago. I shall charge the lictors to
chase the toad son of a toad and slay him for his great insolence that
he rides him in Sênland.”
“The only son of your bitterest foe, Lun Koo Yêh; that is awkward,”
No Fee admitted. “_Yah! Yah!_ you must send a peace-cup to Lun Koo
Yêh--nay, you must take it to him and drink it with Lun Koo Yêh, the
father-one of the beautiful lord.”
Sên Kai Lun groaned, and Ruben saw that he shook with rage. Almost he
feared that the angered man would strike No Fee. She had no such fear,
for she knew that Sên Kai Lun could not. But she pitied Sên Kai Lun.
She knew how the task she had set him would gall him, and why. She
knew the depths of the long quarrel between Sên Kai Lun and Lun Koo
Yêh. She knew how his gorge would rise at the cup she bade him drink.
She had no thought but that he must drink it to the dregs. But in all
her relentless willfulness she found a heart-corner in which to sorrow
for the father who never had thwarted her, and certainly must not be
allowed to do so now. She snuggled close to her father, and they went
in silence, No Fee’s arm thrust in his--an unpardonable liberty for
the girl to take. But Sên Kai Lun did not thrust her off. Ruben walked
beside them sorely in doubt what the end would be; Sên No Fee had none.
Ruben walked alone far into the night, when all the others had gone to
their lacquered pillows. Ruben paced and pondered.
No Fee had shocked him, and he had seen that she had horrified Sên
Toon’s young wife. Mrs. Sên Toon had heard nothing that No Fee had said
to her father; only Sên Ruben had heard. But the bride-one had seen No
gazing at the stranger and had seen that he had returned it warmly, and
Sên Sia Tûtsin had cowered back in her litter, shamed in all her being
for her husband’s young kinswoman.
Would Sên Kai Lun imprison No Fee in a nunnery? Ruben wondered. Or
would he yield and reap the un-Chinese harvest his own weakness had
sown? Was it alone the fault of Sên Kai Lun? Or had the brash ways
of Young China infected even far-off old-conventioned Ho-nan? Was it
possible that rash, hoydenish No Fee could prevail even in this? Sên
Ruben’s gorge rose against it almost even as had Sên Tûtsin’s. He too
had seen the stranger give No Fee look for look. Gods! Not so would
he, nor his lady permit him to, look into the eyes of his lady of the
picture, did ever Kwan Yin-ko, Hearer-of-Cries, grant that he found her.
Oh, to find her!
Too--he pondered and brooded over the words of a witch-woman’s
prophecy. Strange! Very strange!
At last Sên Ruben went slowly to his sleep-mat. But sleep did not find
him soon. Perhaps he had lain soft too long to find within a few moons
rest easy on a wooden pillow.