|ROCKY KANE, the few hours that followed were to exist in memory as a
confused sequence of swift-pressing scenes, all highly colored, vivid;
certain of them touched with horror, others passing in a flash of exotic
beauty; while the fire of hot, unreasoning young love burned all but
unbearably within his breast.
He would remember the crowded line of carts in the sunken narrow road,
the unruly mules that plunged and entangled their harness; the huddled
women; the yellow dust that clung thickly to the bright silks of the
mandarins; the confusion about the gate, and the handful of soldiers
that came hurrying forward to help in a strange business up there; the
trains of other carts that struggled to pass in the narrow way, while
tattered muleteers shouted a babel of invective.
He would remember the sad face of Miss Hui Fei-drawn back within the
shadow of the cart and the faint smiles that came and so quickly went;
and the efforts he made, at first, to cheer her with boyishly bright
talk of this and that.
He would remember how he made his way forward through the press, without
recalling what had just been said, or what, precisely, could have been
the impulse driving him on; past his excellency--sitting yet in his
cart, calmly waiting, while the drabbled mandarins stood respectfully
by; and how he found the soldiers carrying oddly limp Bodies into one of
the gate houses, hiding them there.
He would remember the picture on which he stumbled as he rounded
the inner screen of brick; Mr. Doane and an officer and two or three
soldiers standing thoughtfully about a fat body in spattered silks that
was hideously without a head; standing there in the half dusk--for the
shadows were lengthening softly into evening here under the trees--Mr.
Doane then bending over, the officer kneeling, to examine the embroidery
on the breast; and then two soldiers bringing up a pole on the end
of which grinned the missing head; and then the sound of his own
voice--curiously breathless and without body, asking, “What is it, Mr.
Doane? What terrible thing has happened?” And then, even while he was
speaking, four soldiers carrying another body by, this of a stout man in
shirt and flannel trousers, that he felt he had seen somewhere before.
He would remember--when they had carried out the last awful reminder of
the bloodshed that had been, and while Mr. Doane pressed a hand to his
eyes as if in prayer--how he stood silent there on the gravel area,
looking up into the trees and about at the dim quaint _pai-lows_ on
either hand and at the pavilions behind them, each on its arch of
stone over placid dark water; and how the lightly moving air of evening
whispered through the trees, stirring, with the foliage, faintly musical
little bells; and how, into this moment of calm, appeared, light of
step, swinging her shopping bag as she descended the marble steps of the
pavilion at the right and came forward under the _pai-lows_, the pale
girl, Dixie Carmichael, who glanced respectfully toward Mr. Doane, and
at Rocky himself raised her black eyebrows while her thin lips softly
framed the one word, “You?” And then, after a few words--the girl said
that Tex Connor and the Manila Kid made her come; it had been a terrible
business; she thought both must have been, killed; she had contrived
to hide--how Mr. Doane asked him to take her back to the women; and
how they went, he and she, his heart beating hotly, out through the
darkening gate where paper lanterns now moved about. He felt that
for the first sharp blow at his new life. There would be other blows;
doubtless through this girl; for the old life would not give him up
without a fight.
He was to forget what they said, he and this unaccountable, cool girl,
as he left her out there and hurried back; but would remember the
picture he found on his return--Mr. Doane striding off deliberately into
the darkness beyond the little white bridges, while the officer followed
with a lantern, and the few soldiers, also with lanterns, straggled
after. He would remember crowding himself past all of them, snatching
one of the lanterns as he ran, and falling into step at the side of the
huge determined man.
There were broad courtyards, then, and buildings with heavily curving
roofs and columns richly colored and carved, with dim lights behind
windows of paper squares. There were drunken soldiers, who ran away, and
screaming women, and other women who would never scream or smile again.
There was litter and splintered furniture and a broken-in door here and
there. There was a familiar big soldier who plunged at Mr. Doane with a
glinting blade in his hand; and then a sharp struggle that was to last,
in retrospect, but an instant of time, for the clearer memory was of
himself binding with his handkerchief a small cut in Mr. Doane's forearm
while the soldiers carried out a wounded struggling giant, and then
shouts and shots from the courtyard when the giant escaped. And he would
remember picking up an unset ruby from the tiling and handing it to Mr.
Doane. There was the picture, then, of a melancholy procession winding
slowly through the grove with bobbing gay lanterns.
And finally, to the boy incredibly, the place came into a degree of
order and calm. Women and men disappeared into this building and that.
Rocky sat alone on the steps of a structure that might have been a
temple, hands supporting his throbbing head. The moonlight streamed down
into the courtyard; he could see the grotesque ornaments on the eaves
of the buildings, and the large blue-and-white bowls and vases in which
grew flowering plants and dwarfed trees from Japan, and, in the farther
gate, a sentry lounging. Now and again faint sounds came from within the
largest of the buildings, voices and footsteps; and he could see lights
again dimly through the paper. He wondered what they might be doing....
His thoughts were a fever. The spirit of Hui Fei hovered like an
exquisite dream there, but crowding in with malignant persistence came,
kept coming, pictures of Dixie Carmichael. He wondered where they had
put her. Perhaps she was already asleep. It would be like her to sleep.
She was so cold, so oddly unhealthy. Doubtless, surely, he would have to
speak with her.
He must have dozed. Soldiers were dragging themselves sleepily about the
courtyard, rifles in hand. Two officers and a mandarin in a gown were
examining a paper by the light of a lantern. Then Mr. Doane came out and
read the paper. They talked in Chinese, Mr. Deane's as fluent as theirs.
Rocky thought drowsily about this; considered vaguely the years of study
and experience that must lie back of that fluency.
Mr. Doane, indeed, seemed to be assuming a sort of command. With great
courtesy, but with impressive finality, he appeared to be outlining a
course to which the mandarin assented. The officers bowed and went
out through the gate. And when the mandarin and Doane then turned and
entered the largest building it was the white man who held the paper in
his hand.
Rocky fell again into a doze; slept until he found Mr. Doane shaking
him.
“Come with me now. You can help.” Thus the huge grave man with the deep
shadows in his face.
And Rocky went with him, guided by a servant with a lantern, through
corridors and courtyards, glimpsing dimly massive pillars and panels
in black wood and softly red silk and railings of marble carved into
exquisite tracery.
With the paper that the boy had drowsily observed Doane sought his
excellency. Dominated by the white man the attendant mandarin tapped at
an inner door, then hesitatingly opened; and Doane alone stepped within.
The room was long, plain, obscurely seen by the light of a single
incandescent lamp over the formal _kang_ or platform across the farther
end. Doane had not thought of electric light in here and found it
momentarily surprising. The walls were paneled in silk; the ceiling
was heavy with beams. Against either side wall, mathematically at the
center, stood a square small table and a square stool, heavily carved.
Seated on the _kang_, with papers spread about and brushes and ink pot
directly under the light, in short quilted coat and simple black cap,
was Kang; a serenely patient figure, quietly working. He had merely
looked up; a frail old man, quite beyond the reach of annoyance, whose
eyes gazed unafraid over the rim of mere personal life into the eternal,
tireless energy that would so soon absorb all that was himself. Then,
recognizing the stalwart figure that moved forward into the light, he
rose and clasped his hands and smiled.
“Only an unexpected crisis would lead me to intrude thus,” began Doane
in Chinese, bowing in courtly fashion and clasping his own hands before
his breast.
“No visit from Griggsby Doane could be regarded as an intrusion in my
home,” replied his excellency.
“I will speak quickly, in the Western fashion,” Doane went on. “His
Excellency, the General Duke Ma Ch'un, commanding before Hankow, writes
that he regrets deeply the violent death of the eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu
on your excellency's premises while dutifully engaged on the business of
her imperial majesty, and cordially requests that your excellency come
at once to headquarters as his personal guest to assist him in making an
inquiry into the tragedy. He supplements this invitation with a copy of
a telegram from His Excellency, Yuan Shih-k'ai, commanding him to guard
at once your person and property.”
The simple elderly man, who had been a minister, a grand councilor and
a viceroy, seemed to recoil slightly as his eyes drooped to the papers
about him; then he reached, with a withered hand that trembled, for this
new paper and very slowly read it through.
“His Excellency, Duke Ma Ch'un.” Doane added gently, “has sent a company
of soldiers to escort you fittingly to his headquarters. They are
waiting now at the outermost gate. I took it upon myself in this hour
of sorrow and confusion to advise them, through the mouths of your loyal
officers, that your excellency is not to be disturbed before dawn.”
Slowly, with an expressionless face, the viceroy folded the paper and
laid it on the _kang_. He sank, then, beside it; with visible
effort indicating that his visitor sit as well. But Doane remained
standing--enormously tall, broad, strong; a man to command without
question of rank or authority; a man, it appeared, hardly conscious of
the calm power of personality that was so plainly his.
“Your Excellency is aware”--thus Doane said--“that to admit the
authority of Duke Ma Ch'un at this sorrowful time is to submit both
yourself and your lovely daughter to a fate that is wholly undeserved,
one that I--if I may term myself the friend of both--can not bring
myself to consider without indulging the wish to offer strong
resistance. It has been said, 'The truly great man will always frame his
actions with careful regard to the exigencies of the moment and trim
his sail to the favoring breeze.' Your Excellency must forgive me if I
suggest that, whatever value you may place upon your own life, we can
not thus abandon your daughter, Hui Fei.”
The viceroy's voice, when he spoke, had lost much of its timbre. It was,
indeed, the voice of a weary old man. Yet the words came forth with the
old kindly dignity.
“I asked you, Griggsby Doane, to make with me this painful journey to my
home. We did not know then that we were moving from one scene of tragedy
to another more terrible. But motive must not wait on circumstance.
It need not be a hardship for my other children to live on in Asia as
Asiatics. As such they were born. They know no other life. They will
experience as much happiness as most. But with Hui Fei it is different.
She must not be held away from contact with the white civilization. I
did not give her this modern education for such an end as that. Hui Fei
is an experiment that is not yet completed. She must have her chance.
That is why I brought you here, Griggsbv Doane. My daughter must be got
to Shanghai. There she has friends. I have ventured to count on your
experience and good will to convey her safely there. Will you take
her--now? To-night? I had meant to send with her the jewels and the
paintings of Ming, Sung and Tang. Both collections are priceless. But
the gems are gone--to-night. The paintings, however, remain. Will you
take those and my daughter, and two servants--there are hardly more that
I can trust--and slip out by the upper gate, and in some way escort her
safely to Shanghai?”
“She would not go,” said Doane. “Not while you, Your Excellency, live,
or while your body lies above ground.”
The viceroy, hesitating, glanced up at the vigorous man who spoke so
firmly, then down at the scattered papers on the _kang_. In the very
calm of that shadowed face he felt the bewildering strength of the white
race; and he knew in his heart that the man was not to be gainsaid. His
mind wavered. For perhaps the first time in his shrewd, patiently subtle
life, he felt the heavy burden of his years.
“I will send for her,” he said now, slowly. “I will give her into your
keeping. At my command she will _go_.”
“No, Your Excellency, I have already sent word to her to prepare herself
for the journey. Again you must forgive me. Time presses. It remains
only to collect the paintings. You must have those, at the least. We
start now in a very few moments. I have found here, a prisoner in your
palace, the master of a junk that lies at the river bank, and have taken
it upon myself to detain him further. He will convey us to Shanghai. It
is now but a few hours before dawn. Hostile soldiers stand impatient at
the outermost gate, eager to heap shame upon you and all that is yours.
You must change your clothing--the dress of a servant would be best.”
He waited, standing very still.
“You will forgive indecision in a man of my years,” began the viceroy.
After a moment he began again: “The world has turned upside down,
Griggsby Doane.”
“You will come?”
The viceroy sighed. Trembling fingers reached out to gather the papers.
“I will come.” he said.
Adrift in unreality, fighting off from moment to moment the drowsy sense
that these strange events were but a blur of dreams in which nothing
could be true, nothing could matter, Rocky found himself at work in a
dim room, taking down in great handfuls from shelves scrolls of silk
wound on rods of ivory and putting them in lacquered boxes. Mr. Doane
was there, and the servant, and a second servant of lower class, in
ragged trousers and with his queue tied about his head. Still another
Chinese appeared, shortly, in blue gown and sleeveless short jacket;
an older man who looked, in the flickering faint light of the single
lantern, curiously like the viceroy himself. The first servant
disappeared and returned with the short poles of bamboo used everywhere
in China in carrying burdens over the shoulder, and with cords and
squares of heavy cotton cloth.
Every bit of woodwork that his hands touched in moving about, Rocky
found to be intricately carved and gilded and inlaid with smooth
lacquer. And dimly, crowded about the walls, he half saw, half
sensed, innumerable vases, small and large, with rounding surfaces of
cream-colored crackle and blood-red and blue-and-white and green which
threw back the moving light like a softly changing kaleidoscope. And
there were screens that gave out, from their profound shadows, the glint
of gold.
They packed the boxes together, wrapped the large and heavy cubes in the
squares of cloth and lashed them to hang from the bamboo poles. Four of
them, then, Mr. Doane, Rocky himself and the servants, each balanced
a pole over his shoulders and lifted the bulky cubes. The old man, who
surely, now, was the viceroy, carried a European hand-bag. There were
other parcels.... They made their way along a nearly dark corridor
and out into the moonlight. Here, in a porch, stood four silent
figures--Dixie Carmichael he distinguished first; then Hui Fei, wearing
a short coat and women's trousers and a loose cloak. Her hair was parted
and lay smoothly on her pretty head, glistening in the moonlight.... And
the little princess was there, clinging to the hand of her sister and
rubbing her eyes. They moved silently on, all together, following a path
that wound among shrubbery, over an arching bridge to a gate.
Rocky could dimly see the timbers studded with spikes and the long
hinges of bronze. The servant, with a great key, unlocked the gate,
which closed softly behind them.
The pole weighed heavily on Rocky's unaccustomed shoulder. There was a
trick of timing the step to the swing of the bales, that, stumbling a
little, he caught. He was to remember this--the little file of men and
women gathered from the two ends of the earth and walking without
a spoken sound down through a twisting, sunken Chinese road to the
Yangtze. And sensing the gathering drama of his own life, brooding over
it with slowly increasing nervous intensity, he found himself coming
awake. If this kept on he would soon be excitedly beyond sleep. But it
didn't matter. They were saving Hui Fei. Not a word of explanation had
been offered; but it was coming clear. As for the rest of it, he
asked himself how it could matter. The presence of Miss Carmichael, a
dangerous girl, an adventuress--he was thinking quite youthfully about
her--who might easily be capable of anything, who could in a moment
destroy the hope that was the only foundation, thus far, of his new
life, and perhaps would choose to destroy it--even this, he tried to
tell himself, couldn't possibly matter. Over and over, stumbling and
shuffling along, he told himself that; almost convinced himself that he
believed it.
He was to remember most vividly of all the first glimpse, through a
notch in the hills, of the river. The viceroy paused at that point, and
turning back from the shining picture before him, where the moonlight
silvered the unruffled surface of the water, toward the home of his
ancestors over the hill, spoke in a low but again musical voice a few
lines in which even the American youth could detect the elusive vowel
rhymes of a Chinese poem. And he saw that Mr. Doane stood by with the
slightly bowed head of one who attends a religious ceremony. It was a
moving scene. But could he have understood the words the boy would have
been puzzled. For the poem--the _Surrendering_ of Po Chu-I. breathed
resignation, humility, the negative philosophy so dear to Chinese
tradition, but nothing of religion in the sense that he a Westerner,
understood the word, nothing of mysticism or romantic illusion or
childlike faith; rather a gentle recognition of the fact that life must
go as it had come, unexplained, without tangible evidence of a personal
hereafter; that, too, the individual is as nothing in the vast scheme of
nature.
They were ferried out, shortly after this, to the great junk they had
twice seen within the twenty-four hours, her smooth sides curving yellow
in the moonlight, her decks now scraped and scrubbed clean, flowers
blooming in porcelain pots about a charming gallery that extended high
over the river astern. The crew, roused from slumber, came swarming out
from under the low-spread mattings. The _laopan_ stepped nimbly to his
post amidships on the poop. The heavy tracking ropes were hauled aboard,
and the craft swung slowly off down the current.
Doane, with a lantern, escorted his excellency and Hui Fei, and the
whimpering little princess, to the rooms below; then returned and with
the same impersonal courtesy conducted Miss Carmichael down the steps.
But at the door he indicated she stopped short; wavered a moment,
lightly, on the balls of her feet. Then she accepted the lantern from
him, bit her lip, and let fall the curtain without replying to his
suggestion that she had better sleep if she could.
Alone there, she held up the lantern. The floor had been lately
scrubbed; but, even so, she made out a faint broad stain in the wood.
And a bed of clean matting was spread where she had left a grisly heap.
For a time Dixie stood by the square small window, looking out over the
shining river toward the dim northern bank with its hills that seemed
to drift at a snail's pace off astern. Her quick mind had never been
farther from sleep. Her thin hands felt through her blouse the twisted
ropes of pearls that were wound about her waist. Her lips were pressed
tightly together. These pearls represented a fortune beyond even Dixie's
calculating dreams. To keep them successfully hidden during the days,
perhaps weeks to come of floating down the river in close companionship
with these two strong observant men, and a half crazy American boy, and
clever Oriental women, would test her resourcefulness and her nerve.
Though she felt, ever, now, no doubt of the latter....
The thing was tremendous. Now that the confusion of the day and night
were over with, she found a thrill in considering the problem, while
her sensitive fingers pressed and pressed again the hard little globes.
There were so many of them; such beauties, she knew, in form and size
and color.... Never again would such an opportunity come to her. It was,
precisely, if on the grandest scale imaginable, her sort of achievement.
Tex was gone. The Kid was gone. No one could claim a share or a voice:
it was all hers--wealth, power, even, perhaps, at the last, something
near respectability. For money, enough of it, she knew, will accomplish
even that. While on the other, hand, to fail now, might, would, spell a
life of drab adventure along the coast, without even a goal, without a
decent hope; with, always, the pitiless years gaining on her.
She searched, tiptoeing, about the room, lantern in hand, for a place
to hide her treasure; then reconsidered. In some way she must keep the
pearls about her person; though not, as now, looped around her waist. An
accidental touch there might start the fateful questioning.
She put down the lantern; stood for a long time by the curtained door,
listening. From up and down the passage came only the heavy breathing of
exhausted folk. She slipped out cautiously; made her way to the sloping
deck above--how vividly familiar it was!--tiptoed lightly aft, past
the uncurious helmsman, around the huge coils of rope and the piled-up
fenders of interwoven matting, out to the pleasant gallery where the
flowers were.
And then, as she stepped down and paused to breathe slowly, deeply,
again the heavy-sweet perfume of the tuberoses, a boyish figure sprang
up, with a nervous little gasp of surprise, from the steamer chair of
Hong Kong grass.
She said, in her quiet way, “Oh, hello!” And then, with a quick sidelong
glance at him, accepted the chair he offered. He seemed uncertain as to
whether he would go or stay. Lowering her lids, she studied him. He was
standing the excitement well, even improving. His carriage was better;
he stood up well on his strong young legs. And he was quieter, better in
hand, though of course the never-governed, long overstimulated emotions
would not be lying very deep beneath this new, more manly surface. He
was very good-looking, really a typical American boy.
He stood now, fingering the petals of a dahlia and gazing out astern
into the luminous night. She pondered the question of exerting herself
again to win him. The money was there, plenty of it. He would be as
helpless as ever in her experienced hands. And the mere use of her skill
in trapping and stripping him would be enjoyable.... He was lingering.
She decided in the negative. He would surely become tempestuous. And as
surely, if she permitted that, he would discover the pearls. And--again
the thrill of mastery swept through her finely strung nerves--she had
those. They were enough. But they must be better hidden. There was her
problem still, a problem that aught at any instant become delicately
acute. She considered it, lying comfortably back in the chair,
luxuriating in the richly blended scent of the crowded blossoms, while
her nearly closed eyes studied the restless boy.
Abruptly he turned. What now? Was he about to become tempestuous all on
his own? It would be anything but out of character. Her slight muscles
tightened, but her face betrayed no emotion, would have betrayed none
in a more searching light than this soft flood from the moon. He was
sentimental over the Manchu princess, now, of course. She hadn't missed
that. But in the case of an ungoverned boy, she well knew, the emotion
itself could be vastly more important than its immediate object But now
she was to meet with a small surprise.
“Look here!” he began, crude, naive, as always, “there's
something--perhaps--I ought to tell you. I tried to carry on with you.
You've got a right to think anything about me--”
At least he was keeping his voice down. She lay still; let him talk.
“--But I've changed. Smile at that, if you want to!”
She did smile faintly, but only at his clear, clean ignorance of the
insult that underlay his words.
“--I _was_ on the loose. It's different now. I'm going to try to do
something with my life. Whatever happens--I mean however my luck may
seem to turn--”
He could hardly go on with this. The next few words were swallowed down.
It was plain enough that he couldn't think clearly. And he couldn't
possibly know that he was giving her an opening through which, within
a very few moments, she was to see the outline of the policy she must
pursue during these difficult days to come on the junk.
She lifted her head; leaned on an elbow. “Do you know,” she said, in a
voice that seemed, now, to have a note of friendliness, “I'm sorry for
you.”
“Sorry for me!”
“Don't think I can't see how it is. And you mustn't misunderstand me.
I'm older than you. I'm pretty experienced. My life has been hard. There
couldn't be anything serious between you and me. You've wakened up to
that.”
The new note in her voice puzzled him, but caught his interest. He stood
looking straight down at her.
“I know you're in love,” she went on.
“But--”
“Don't be silly. It's plain enough. She's very attractive. Nobody could
blame you.”
“She's wonderful!”
“It's nice to see you feeling that way. It--it's no good our talking
about it, you and me. All I've got to say is--please don't think I'd
bother you. I may have led a rough life at times--a girl alone, who has
to live by her wits--but--oh, well, never mind that! Every man has
had his foolish moments. I understand you better than you will ever
know--and--well, here's good luck!” And she offered her hand.
He took it, breathless, eager. He seemed, then, on the point of pouring
out his story to this new surprising friend. But a slight sound caught
his attention. He looked up, and slowly let fall the hand that
was gripped in his; for at the break of the deck, just above them,
hesitating, very slim and wan, stood Miss Hui Fei.
The situation was, of course, in no way so dramatic as it seemed to the
boy. He, indeed, drew back, overcome; the habit of guilty thought was
not to be thrown off in a moment. Miss Carmichael, sensing that he
would begin erecting the incident into a situation the moment he could
clumsily speak, took the matter in hand; rising, and quietly addressing
herself to the Manchu girl. Breeding, of course, was not hers, could not
be; but her calm manner and her instinct for reticence could seem, as
now, not unlike the finer quality.
“Do have this chair,” she said. “I was going down.”
Miss Hui Fei smiled faintly. “I coul'n' sleep,” she murmured.
“There's one little article I suppose none of us thought to bring--”
thus Miss Carmichael, balancing in her light way on the balls of her
feet--“needle and thread.” She even indulged in a little passing laugh.
“I think my maid--” began Miss Hui Fei.
“Oh, no! I wouldn't bother you!”
“Yes! Please--I don' min'.”
She turned; and the boy started impulsively toward her. Miss Carmichael
moved away, over the deck, but heard him saying, in a broken voice:
“You'll come back? I've got to tell you something!”
To which Miss Hui Fei replied, in a voice that was meant to be at once
pleasant and impersonal: “Why--yes. I think I'll come back. It's
so close down there.” The two young women went below. Quietly Miss
Carmichael waited in the passage.
The needle and thread were shortly forthcoming. The white girl smiled;
seeming really friendly there in the dim ray of light that slanted in
through a window.
“It's good of you,” she said.
“Oh, no--it's nothing.”
“We're in for a rather uncomfortable trip of it. I hope you'll let me do
anything I can to help you. I'm more used to knocking about, of course.”
“We'll all make the best of it,” said the Manchu girl, and turned, with
an effort at a smile, toward the stairs.
Miss Carmichael entered her own room. The lantern still burned, but the
candle-end was low. She saw now an iron lamp, an open dish full of oil
with a floating wick. This she lighted with the candle. Next, moving
about almost without a sound, she fastened the swaying door-curtain with
pins. Then she slipped out of her blouse and skirt; untied the pearl
cape; and seated on the bed of matting, with her back to the door, began
patiently sewing the pearls into her undergarments. It was to be a
long task. Before dawn the lamp burned out, and fearful of being caught
asleep with the amazing treasure about her she stood at the window and
let the wind blow into her face until the faintly spreading light of
dawn made the work again possible. The drowsiness that nearly overcame
her now she fought off with an iron will. Nothing mattered--nothing but
success. Her thin deft fingers worked in a tireless rhythm. Only once,
very briefly, did she yield to the impulse to weigh the exquisite
lustrous globes in her hands; to hold them close to the light. Her
tireless reason told her that this wouldn't do. It brought an excited
throbbing to her weary head.... She settled again to her task; time
enough to gloat later. By way of a healthy mental occupation she
counted the pearls as she threaded them--up to a thousand--on up to two
thousand--then (the sun was redly up now; and folk were stirring about
the deck) three thousand. In all, a few more than thirty-seven hundred
pearls she threaded about her person; and then slipped back into
blouse and skirt before permitting herself a few hours of sleep. The
diamond-studded clasps she wrapped in a bit of cloth and stuffed into
her hand-bag.
The Chinese maid woke her then, bringing food that had been cooked, she
knew, in the brick stove up forward, where the crew slept. She could
bring herself to eat but a few mouthfuls.... This didn't matter, either.
No hardship was of consequence in such a battle as hers; she would have
submitted coolly to torture rather than surrender her prize. But it
suggested fresh tactics. She had a knack at cooking. Quietly, later
in the day--she knew better than to try effusive friendliness; to play
herself to the last would be best--she spoke to Mr. Doane of that small
gift. A kitchen was improvised in the _laopan's_ cramped quarters, aft;
and Miss Carmichael, quite intent about her business, coolly cheerful
about it, indeed, began to prove her capacity. And she knew, then, that
she was winning. They would soon be respecting her, even liking her.
Even so she would keep her distance; then they would have to keep
theirs. That was all she needed.
To Rocky, the most elusive memory of all this eventful night was the
conversation with Miss Hui Fei. For she returned in a moment--so he
remembered it--and sank wearily into the steamer chair. The picture of
that scene was to vary bafflingly in his mind. At times he saw himself,
torn with an emotion now so great that it seemed the end of life,
standing over her, saying, passionately:
“I know how it looked--you're finding us here like that! And you'd have
reason. I did flirt with her. I'm ashamed now. I hadn't seen you--felt
you--like this. But that's all over. I was telling her--Please! You've
got to know!--that I love you. Or telling her enough. She understood.
And she was awfully decent. She took my hand, wished me luck.”
There must have been a brief time then when the poor girl was
endeavoring pleasantly to turn aside this torrent of heavily freighted
words. Certainly he was talking feverishly on. He could remember pulling
down a coil of rope from the steersman's deck and sitting moodily beside
her; and there was a sensation in their minds, his and hers, of being
at cross-purposes. There was something about her, back of the weary
smile--a smile that was long to haunt him, dim in the moonlight,
exquisite in its sensitive beauty--that eluded his pressing desire until
it seemed near to driving him mad. Kipling's _East is East, and West is
West_, slipped in among his thoughts; kept coming and coming until it
became a nerve-wracking singsong in his brain.
There was one period, fortunately very short, when he seemed to be
almost forcing a quarrel. Why, he couldn't afterward imagine. That
part of it was dreadful in the retrospect. He had reached the point,
apparently, when he couldn't longer endure the failure to reach her.
There was simply no response. It was almost as if he were frightening
her away. Perhaps it was just that.
But the most vivid memory was of the unaccountable force that suddenly
rose in him, seizing on his tongue, his brain, his very nerves. The
power of the Kanes was abruptly his, and it brought its own skill with
it. It was, distinctly, a possession. It simply came, at this very top
of his emotional pitch. There must have been preliminaries. He must
have said things that she must have answered. But these lesser moments
dropped out. Even a day later, he could see, could almost feel, himself
on one knee beside the steamer chair, saying those amazing things,
without a shred of memory as to how he got there. Never had he so
spoken, to girl or woman; for in the escapades of the younger Rocky
there had always been a reticence if seldom a restraint. It was
precocity; the blood that was in him.
“You beautiful, wonderful girl!” he was breathing, close to her ear.
(He was never to forget this.) “How can you hide your feelings from me?
Can't you see it's just driving me mad?.... You're adorable!
You're exquisite! You thrill me so--just your voice; the way you
walk--your hands--your hair!.... Can't you understand, dear, it isn't
what they call 'love.'” (This with a divine contempt.) “It's the cry
of my whole being. I want to give you my life. I want to know _your_
life--study it--come to understand the wonderful people that has made
you possible! I'm going to study it--history, art, everything!....
I worship you! I dream so of you--all the time--daytimes! I just
half-close my eyes and then, right away, I can see you, walking. And I
see you as you were at the dance on the boat.” He choked a little; then
rushed on. “And in those dreams I always take you in my arms--No, let me
say it! The angels are singing it, the wonderful truth!--I take you
in my arms and kiss your hair and your eyes. You always close your
eyes--oh, so slowly--and I press my lips on the lids. And your arms are
around my neck. I can feel your hands. But I never kiss your lips--not
in those dreams. Because that will mean that you have given me your
soul, and I always know I must wait for that....
“Please! You must listen! Can't you see I'm just tearing my heart out
and putting it in your hands--under your feet? There isn't any other
life for me. I can't live without you. I could give up my friends, my
home, my country, and be happy just serving you.”
He had captured her hand; had it tight in his two hands and was kissing
it tenderly. The thrill was unbelievable now. It was ecstasy. He
could hear himself murmuring over and over, “You're so exquisite! So
thrilling! I love the way your hair lies over your forehead. I love your
eyes, especially when you smile”.... On and on.
The tired sad girl in the steamer chair could not fail to respond in
some measure, in every sensitive nerve, to so ardent a wooing. Even when
she rose, and struggled a little to withdraw her hand, she couldn't be
angry. He was surprising; in his very boyishness, compelling.
Then, a little later, he was sitting moodily on the extension front of
the chair, face in hands, plunged into a wordless abyss; she sat on the
edge of the steersman's deck, leaning against the rail, her face close
to a lotus plant, with one flower that looked a ghostly blue in the
fading moonlight, and just later, shaded through pink to deep red with
the first quick-spreading color of the dawn. His emotional outburst had
passed, for the moment, like a gust. He seemed to himself, already,
to have failed. His thoughts were turned, behind the gray half-covered
face, on death. For so swung the pendulum. He couldn't, in these depths,
draw significance from the remarkable fact that she had risen only to
drop down again and carry forward the talk that he let fall, and that he
had, for the time at least, swept away those mental obstacles. Certainly
Miss Hui Fei was not elusive now.
The things she was saying, in a deliberate, matter-of-fact way,
bewildered him.
“I don' want you to make love to me like tha'.”
“But how can I help it? You're so wonderful. You thrill me so. I tell
you it's my whole life. I can never live on without you--not any more.
It's got to be with you, or--or nothing.”
It was strange. This impulsive affection had grown very, very rapidly
within him; yet, even a day earlier he couldn't have pictured this
scene. Not a phrase of these burning sentences he was so fervently
uttering had been consciously framed in his mind. A part of the thrill
of the situation lay in the very fact that he was so wildly committing
himself. Now that it was being said, he felt no desire to take a word
back. He meant it all; and more--more.
But she--still, even in the telltale morning light, quaint, charming,
adorable--was growing so practical about it.
“You're a ver' romantic boy.”
“I'm not! This is real! Can't you understand that it's love--forever?”
“Please!.... I don' want you to think I don' un'erstan'. It's ver' sweet
an' generous of you--”
“I'm not generous! I want you!”
“I do apprecia' all it woul' mean. You offer me so much--”
“You dear girl, I offer you everything--everything I have or am! I don't
want to live at all unless it's with you always at my side.”
“But I don't think--Please! I woui'n' hurt you for anything. You've
helped so--helped saving my father's life an' mine. It's won'erful--but
I don' think life is like that. People mus' have so much in common to
marry in the Western way. They mus' love each other, yes. But in their
min's an' feelings they mus' share so much--their backgroun's....”
He was out of the chair now; was beside her on the deck.
“Listen!” he was huskily saying. “We'll get married right away in
Shanghai. We've got to! I won't let you say no! And then we won't go
back. We'll stay out here. There'll be money enough, in spite of the
pater. We'll study this East together. I'm going to devote all the rest
of my life to it. We'll build our common interest. I shall never want
anything else!”
“How do you knew that?”
“Can you doubt me?” He had both her hands now. He seemed so young, so
eager. He would fight for what he greatly desired, as his father had
fought before him. However crudely, boyishly, he would fight.
“No”--her own voice was, surprisingly, a little unsteady--“of course I
don' doubt you. But how can you know what you're going to wan'--years
from now. I don' un'erstan' that. It does seem pretty romantic to me. I
don't know for myself. I coul'n' tell.”
This, or perhaps it was her failure to rise to his ecstasy, plunged him
again into the depths.
“It's you or nothing now,” he repeated. “You or nothing.”
“Wha' do you mean by that?”
“I've got to have you. If I can't, I'll--oh, I guess I'll just drop
quietly overboard. What's the use?”
“Do you think it's fair to talk li' that?”
“Perhaps not, but--I guess I'm beside myself.”
“Listen!” said she now: with a friendly, even sympathetic pressure of
his trembling hands, “I'll tell you what I think. I think the thing for
you to do is to go back to college.”
This stung him. “How can you talk like that,” he cried, “when--”
“I don' wan' to hurt you. But please try to think this as I wan' you
to.”
“Haven't you _any_ feeling for me?”
“Of course, an' I'm ver' grateful.”
“For God's sake, don't talk like that.”
There was a pause. He withdrew his hands; plunged his feverish face into
them.
She rose, wearily. Said: “I'm going to try to sleep.”
“And you could go? Leaving it like this?”
“Please! I can't help--”
“Oh, I understand--” he was on his feet before her; caught her arms in
his hands that now were firm and young--“I haven't moved you yet, that's
all. But I will. We Kanes aren't quitters. We don't give up. And I'm not
going to give you up. I'm going to win you. Can't you see that I've got
to? That I can't live.... Listen! You're the loveliest, daintiest little
girl in the world. You're exquisite. Your voice is music to me. I've got
to live my life to that music. It'll be beautiful! Can't you see that? I
don't care how much time it takes. I'll settle down to it. But I'll win
you. And we'll be married at Shanghai?”
He was very nearly irresistible now. The power in him was real. She
broke away; then, a surprise to herself, lingered. Strangely to her,
this ardent, still somewhat impossible boy, with his vital, Western
force, had actually created an atmosphere of romance in which she was,
for the moment, and in a degree, enveloped. She knew, clearly enough,
that she must exert herself to escape from it: but lingered.
He caught her hands again; covered them with kisses; held them firmly
while his eyes, suddenly radiant, sought hers and, during a moving
instant, held them. She went below then. And Rocky dropped into the
steamer chair and smiled exultantly as he drifted into slumber.
When they met again, away from the others, after an excellent luncheon
of fowl and vegetables prepared by the surprising Miss Carmichael, his
mood was wholly changed. He had charm; consciously or unconsciously, he
made it felt.
“I wasn't fair to you,” he began.
“If you don' min',” said she, “we jus' won' talk abou' that.”
“Can't help it.” He smiled a little. “There's no use pretending I can
think about another thing. I'm madly in love with you--hopelessly gone.
It'll probably simplify things if you'll just accept that as a fact.
But last night--this morning--whenever it was!--after all we'd been
through--you know, it wasn't so unnatural that I got all fired up that
way.”
As this half-smiling, half-serious youth was plainly going to be even
more difficult to manage than the ardent boy of the glowing dawn, she
was silent.
“Here's the thing,” he went on. “I was too worn out myself to be
considerate of you. I meant every word, of course. You'll never know how
wonderful you seem to me.” This rather wistfully. They were leaning on
the rail, gazing at the rocky hills along the southern bank. “It's all
wrong for me to be so impatient. I know I've got to make good. I've got
to earn you. That won't come all at once. But I am going to try not to
get stirred up like that again. God knows you've got enough to bother
you.”
“I'm ver' uncertain abou' my father,” said she. “How do you mean?”
“Oh--he stays in his room. He doesn' come out with us. An' he's always
working.”
“Well--does that mean anything? Wouldn't he naturally be busy?”
“I don' think so. No, like this.”
“But I don't understand what--”
“It isn' easy to say. When a man like father--what you call a
mandarin--feels that he mus'”--her voice wavered--“that he mus' go,
there is a grea' deal that he must wri' to his frien's an' to the
governmen'. He doesn' wan' to be disturb'. I can' tell wha' he's doing.
It worries me.”
Doane, during the sunny dreamy afternoon, heard them, now and again.
They were quite monopolizing the pleasant after gallery. And they were
drifting on into their love story. He could not restrain himself from
watching and listening. Despite the fact that his own dream was
over, Doane felt about it, in his heart, like a boy. The sight of
her quickened his pulse. Thoughts of her--mental pictures--came
irresistibly. And these, at times, puzzled his heart if never his
reason; the moment on the top deck of the steamer, when she climbed the
after ladder and first confided her tragic difficulty; the dance she
“sat out” with him.
.... He called himself, often enough, a fool. But his spirit refused
to accept the words that formed in his mind. He was simply at war with
himself.... The sort of thing happened often enough in life, of
course. Every man lived through such periods. Men of middle age in
particular.... Thus he fell back, over and again, on reason. It was all
he could do. Plainly the experience would take a lot of living through.
To hope that her quick youth could altogether resist Rocky's ardent
youth was asking too much, of course. The young people were almost
certain to find themselves helpless--their emotions stirred by what
they had been living through; thrown together here, romantically, on the
junk. Whatever small difficulties they might encounter in exploring each
other's nascent feelings would be softened by the very air they were
breathing. The young are often, usually, helpless when nature so works
upon them.... But Doane wasn't bitter. At times he nearly convinced
himself that he felt only concern lest they rush along too fast;
surrender their hearts, only to find too late that the necessary
affinity was not growing into flower. The boy must have some proving, of
course. That lovely girl mustn't be sacrificed.
Late in the afternoon they were singing, softly, even humorously. Doane
caught snatches of _Mandalay_, and the college songs. That would seem
to them a fine bond, of course--the mere casual fact that both knew the
songs. For youth is quite as simple as that.... So they were rushing on
with it, while an older man pondered. Rocky hung unashamed on her every
word, every movement; waited forlornly about whenever she went below;
starting at sounds, sinking into moods, and shining with radiance
when she reappeared. He even had gentle moments.... What girl could be
insensible to all that? He himself was avoiding them, of course. There
was no helping that; certainly in this stage of the romance.
His excellency appeared on deck during the second afternoon; greeted
Doane in friendly fashion--looking oddly simple in his servant costume;
blue gown, plain cloth slippers, skull-cap with a knot of vermilion
silk. They walked the deck together; later, they sat on a coil of rope.
In manner he was very nearly his old self; smiling a thought less,
perhaps, but as humanly direct in his talk as a Chinese.
“We shall soon be parting, Grigsby Doane,” he remarked, “and I shall
think much of you. Do you know yet where you shall go and what you shall
do?”
“No,” Doane replied. “All I can do now is the next thing, whatever that
may prove to be.”
“You will help China?”
“I shall hope for an opportunity.”
“You are, first and last, a Westerner.”
“I suppose that is true.”
“I did think you a philosopher, Griggsby Doane. So you seemed to me.
Like our humble great, almost like Chuang Tzü himself. But in the moment
of crisis your nature found expression wholly in action. At such times
we of the East are likely to be negative. We are a static people. But
you, like your own, are dynamic.”
This shrewd bit of observation struck Doane sharply. Come to think, it
was true.
“At the critical moment you wasted not one thought in reflection. You
weighed none of the difficulties; you ignored consequences. You took
command. You acted. As a result--here we are.... I suppose you were
right. At any rate, I yielded to your active judgment. It has saved my
daughter.”
“And you, as well, Your Excellency, if I may say so.”
“Very well--myself too.... I shall always think of you now as I have
twice seen you--once in that curious boxing match on the steamer; and
again as you took command of me and my own house. I regret that in
my position as a Manchu, however progressive, I can not be of any
considerable service to you with the republicans. It is in their camp
that your advice will help. Only there. Shall you go to them?”
Doane found it impossible to mention the invitation of Sun-Shi-pi. That
would be a sacred confidence. So he replied in merely general terms:
“I should like to sit in their councils. They seem to represent, at this
time, China's only material hope. Though I am not strongly an optimist
regarding the revolution. China is so vast, so sunken in tradition,
that the real revolution must be distressingly slow. Still, I have some
familiarity with the constitutional history of my own country, and, I
think, some acquaintance with yours. And I love China. Yes, I should
like to help.”
“You are a great man, Griggsby Doane. You have known sorrow and poverty.
To the merely successful American I do not look for much real guidance.
But China needs you. I hope she will find you out in time.”
They talked on, of many things. His excellency was gently, at times even
whimsically, reflective. At length he touched, lightly at first, on the
subject of Rocky Kane. A little later, more openly, he asked what the
boy's standing would be in New York.
Doane thought this over very carefully. It was curious how that
confusing element of mere feeling reappeared promptly in his mind.
But he explained, finally, that while the boy was young, and had been
passing through a phase of rather adventurous wildness, still his father
was a man of enormous prestige in society as in the financial world. The
boy had nice qualities. Given the right influences he might, with the
wealth that would one day be his, become like his father, a powerful
factor in American life.
“I find myself somewhat puzzled,” remarked his excellency then. “He
seems devoted to my daughter. I can not easily read her mind. And I
would not attempt to direct her life as would be necessary had she been
merely a Manchu girl reared in a Manchu environment. Is she, do you
think, and as your people understand the term, in love with him? I find
their present relationship somewhat alarming.”
“It would be difficult to say, Your Excellency--” thus Doane, simply and
gravely. “The young man is, of course, in love with her.”
“Ah,” breathed his excellency. “You are sure of that?”
“Yes. She is undoubtedly accustomed to play about pleasantly with young
men as do the young women of America.” Sudden, poignant memories came
of his own lovely daughter, as she had been; and of the puzzling romance
that had seemed for a time to injure her young life--a romance in which
he, her father, had played a strange part. But that was, after all, but
an echo from another life; a closed book.
“Your daughter, I am sure,” Doane continued, “can be trusted to form her
own attachments. She is a noble as well as a beautiful girl.”
“Indeed--you find her so, Griggsby Doane? That is pleasant to my ears.
For into the directing of her life have gone my dreams of the new China
and the new world. I would not have her choose wrongly now. But I do not
understand her. It is difficult for me to talk freely with her.”
“I am sure,” said Doane slowly, “that if you could bring yourself to do
so”--as once or twice before, in moments of deep feeling, he forgot
to use the indirect Oriental form of address--“it would make her very
happy.”
“You think that, Griggsby Doane?” His excellency considered this. Then
added: “I will make the effort.”
“If I may suggest--talk with her not as father with daughter, but on an
equality, as friend with friend.”
His excellency slowly rose; and Doane, also rising, felt for the first
time that the fine old statesman fully looked his age. He was, standing
there, smiling a thought wistfully, an old man, little short of a broken
man. And then his dry thin hand found Doane's huge one and gripped it in
the Western manner. This was a surprise, evidently as moving to Kang as
to Doane himself; for they stood thus a moment in silence.
“My dearest hope, of late,” said the great Manchu--the smoothest of
etiquette giving way, for once, before the pressure of emotion--“has
been that my daughter's heart might be entrusted to you, Griggsby
Doane.”
Again a silence. Then Doane:
“That was my hope, as well.”
“Then--”
“No. It is plainly impossible. All life is before her. The thought has
not come to her. It never will. I see now that she could not be happy
with me. And I think she ought to be happy. I must ask you not to speak
of this again. Let youth call unto youth. And let me be her friend.”
His excellency went below after this. Miss Hui Fei was also below,
sleeping. Rocky Kane had been playing with the little princess, out on
the gallery; but now, evidently watching his chance, he came forward to
the informal seat the mandarin had vacated.
It was to be difficult--always difficult. The boy, plainly, couldn't
live through these tense days without a confidant. Doane steeled himself
to bear it, and to respond as a friend. There was no way out; would be
none short of Shanghai; just an exquisite torture. It was even to
grow, with each fresh contact, harder to bear. The boy was so curiously
unsophisticated, so earnest and honest an egotist.
“--I've asked her,” he said now.
Doane could only wait.
“She hasn't said yes. That would be absurd, of course--so soon.” He was
so pitifully putting up a brave front. “But she does like me. And it's
something that she hasn't said no. Isn't it something?”
That was hardly a question; it was nearer assertion--what he had to
think. Doane managed to incline his head.
“But never mind that. God knows why I should bother you with it. You've
been so kind--such a friend. We--are friends, aren't we?”
Doane felt himself obliged to turn and meet his eyes. And such eyes!
Ablaze with nervous light. And then he had to grip another hand--this
one young, moist, strong. But he managed that, too.
“Listen! I do bother you awfully, but--I've been thinking--here we are,
you know. God knows when I'll find a man who could help me as you can.
And we brought all those wonderful old paintings aboard here. I've been
thinking--well, since I've got so much to learn of Chinese culture,
why not begin? Couldn't I--would they mind if I looked at some of
the pictures? And--if it isn't asking too much--you could tell me why
they're good. Just begin to give me something to go by. Isn't it as good
a way to make the break as any?”
It was a most acceptable diversion. Doane, though several boxes of the
paintings were in his own rooms, sent a servant to ask a permission that
was cordially granted. And as there was a wind blowing, they went below,
and talked there in low voices in order not to disturb the sleeping
girl, while the elder man carefully opened a box and got out a number
of the long scrolls that were wound on rods of ivory, handling them with
reverent fingers.
He chose one from the brush of that Chao Meng-fu who flourished under
the earliest Mongol or Yuan rulers, a roll perhaps fourteen or fifteen
inches in width, and in length, judging from the thickness, as many
feet, tied around with silk cords and fastened with tags of carven jade.
The painting itself, naturally, was on silk, which in turn was pasted on
thick, dark-toned paper, made of bamboo pulp, with borders of brocade.
The projecting ends of the ivory rollers, like the tags, were carved.
At the edge of the scroll were, besides the seal signature of the
artist, and the date--in our chronology, A. D. 1308--many other
signatures in the conventional square seal characters of royal and
other collectors who had possessed the painting, with also, a few pithy,
appreciative epigrams from eminent critics of various periods. On that
one margin was stamped the authentic history of the particular bit of
silk, paper and pigment during its life of six full centuries; for no
hand could have forged those seals.
There was no likelihood that the boy--lacking, as he was, in cultural
background--would exhibit any sensitive responsiveness to the exquisite
brush-work of the fine old painter or to his consciously subjective
attitude toward his art. But there is a way in which the simple Western
mind that is not preoccupied with fixed concepts of art may be led into
enjoyment of such a landscape scroll; this is to exhibit it as do the
Chinese themselves, unrolling it, very slowly, a little at a time,
deliberately absorbing the detail and the finely suggested atmosphere,
until a sensation is experienced not unlike that of making a journey
through a strange and delightful country. Doane employed this method--it
was surely what that old painter intended--and led the boy slowly from a
pastoral home, so small beneath its towering overhanging mountain
crags, that lost themselves finally in soft cloud-masses, as to appear
insignificant, out along a river where lines of reeds swayed in the
winds and boats moved patiently, across a lake that was dotted with
pavilions and pleasure craft--on and on, through varied scenes that yet
were blended with amazing craftsmanship into a continuous, harmonious
whole.
The time crept by and by. When Doane finally explained the seal
characters at the end and retied the old silk cords with their hanging
rectangles of unclouded green jade, the sun was low over the western
hills.
Rocky's face was flushed, his eyes nervously bright. “I don't get it
all, of course,” he said; “but it makes you feel somehow as if you'd
been reading _The Pilgrim's Progress!_”
Doane gravely nodded.
“Shall we look at another?” said Rocky.
“No. That is enough. The Chinese knew better than to crowd the mind with
confused impressions of many paintings. A good picture is an experience
to be lived through, not a trophy to be glanced at.”
“I wonder,” said the boy, “if that's why I used to hate it so when my
tutor dragged me through the Metropolitan Museum?”
“Doubtless.”
“And this picture has a great value, I suppose?”
“It is virtually priceless--in East as well as West,” replied Doane as
he replaced it among its fellows in the box.
Thus began, late but perhaps not too late, what may be regarded as the
education of young Rockingham Kane.