For myself, I have followed up the business of the stones all day. I
feel that I should like to settle this affair before she goes. I want
her to know that my work is starting so wonderfully well. And doubtless
I shall hear from the Minister in the morning, the first thing. He has
no reason to delay. The suggestion came from him, not from me.
I am proposing to call the Pien Ch'ing by his name. There are a few
other perfect or nearly perfect specimens in existence, and a special
name is desirable. His will do as well as any for the purpose of
identifying ours.
I am very nervous to-night. Hindmann observed it before I was fully
aware of it myself. He tried to make me drink some whisky. But I don't
see what good that would do.
These last few days, as I look back on them, seem quite unreal. I walk
about. I eat. I even sleep. I talk with Hindmann about one thing and
another, naturally enough. I laugh, I become heated, angry. I even
think intently of many workaday things. Why, to-day after tiffin, when
Hindmann made his curious proposal that Heloise and I go into vaudeville
under his management, I discussed the thing quite rationally before
declining--particularly as to the possibility of making her gift of
close-interval singing intelligible to the ordinary audience.... And
yet, nothing is really so. Back of it all there is a nervous pressure, a
tension....
Well, it is all over, this strange drama. It has changed me vitally.
I shall never again be the self-centered--no, not self-centered,
either--_work_-centered recluse that I have been. Life has seized
upon me and whirled me into its main current. I have felt passion and
jealousy. I have loved. I have hated. I have fought. I have held in my
arms--close, close--the one woman whose eyes have the magic power to
unlock my heart and flood it with the radiant music of love.
And now we go our ways--because it is life. I had her large trunk
conveyed to the station this afternoon. To-morrow morning I shall call
for her. We shall step into our separate rickshaws; quiet-seeming folk;
I a thin man in spectacles and an overcoat and a soft hat; she a slim,
graceful woman, wearing a simple black suit, slightly pale for want
of the outdoor air, and with a touch of perplexity and mystery in her
shadowy blue eyes.
We shall ride to the East Station. I will see that she is comfortably
settled on the train; and wish her a not too unpleasant journey, and
stand there in the station until the train shall have disappeared beyond
the end of the Chinese city wall.
That will be the end.
_April 21st. Early._
|THE letter is here from the Minister. He gives us the Pien Ch'ing
outright. It is to bear his name, and to be kept where it will be always
accessible to scholars and to the public. He very courteously suggests
that the stones be packed under my personal supervision.
I am going down to breakfast now. Then I shall cable Harbury, advising
him of the benefaction. Then for Heloise, and the train....
_Same date. Night._
|I CALLED for Heloise at a quarter past nine this morning, and sent up
my card.
It was returned to me in a few minutes. Heloise had written on
it--“Come up.”
Her door was ajar. I stepped in. Her steamer trunk and hand bags were
piled there, ready to go.
“Be ready in a moment, Anthony,” she said. Then, “You were coming up,
weren't you?”
She was busy doing a last bit of sewing on her coat, and spoke without
looking up.
“No,” said I, “I was n't.”
[Illustration: 0359]
She worked on in silence for a moment. Then she said--“Do we have to go
right on, up to the last minute, Anthony, being so dreadfully casual?”
I hardly knew how to answer this. It had seemed to me that we had to do
precisely that. I dropped into a chair by the bare center table, and held
my hat in my two hands.
“Oh. don't worry, Anthony,” she went on. I had never heard her speak in
just that tone. It disturbed me. “Don't worry. I'm going. To Harbin--and
Moscow--and Paris. In less than an hour I shall be gone. But it did seem
to me that we could say good-by up here.”
She went right on sewing until the little task was done. Then she bent
over and bit off the thread with a jerk of her head. She put the needle
in her shopping bag; then pursed her lips and studied the little gold
watch on her wrist.
Finally she looked up, and our eyes met.
“Anthony,” she said, very quietly, “what if I should n't go?”