|HE sent in his name, and waited for an hour in an outer office. For
even at this late hour in the evening headquarters was a busy place.
Chinese gentlemen crowded in and out, dressed, to a man, in the frock
coats and the flapping black trousers they didn't know how to wear. High
officers slipped quietly in and out--in khaki, with the white
brassard of the Revolution on their left arms; sometimes with merely
a handkerchief tied there Orderlies and messengers came and went. And
clerks of untiring patience sat at desks.
It was a difficult hour. Rocky had only his confused emotions to guide
him, and his hurt heart. There were moments, even, when he didn't know
why he had come. But he never thought of giving up. Whatever their
curious relations, he had to see Mr. Doane, who was now the only stable
figure in the rocking world about him. The man had been fine--square.
That he knew now. And his nervous young imagination was veering toward
hero-worship. He was utterly humble.
Naturally he was boyish about it, when they finally led him into that
inner office. He said, flushing a little:
“I know you're busy, Mr. Doane--”
“Not too busy for you. I kept you waiting to clear up a lot of things.”
The man's great size and calmness of manner--the question rose; had he
ever in his life known weariness?--were comforting.
“I'm--sailing Saturday.”
This, for a brief moment, brought the kindly though strong and sober
face to immobility.
“You see, sir, I've come to feel that the best thing for me is to go
back and---start clean.”
A slight mist came over Doane's eyes. What a struggle the boy had had
of it! And how splendidly he was working through!.... Thought came about
the children of the rich in America... the problem of it....
“I--couldn't go without seeing you. You see, sir, it's you, I guess,
that've put me on my feet. I sort of--well, I want you to know that
I _am_ on them. It's been a strange experience, all round. A terrible
experience, of course. It shakes you....”
“It has shaken me, too,” Doane observed simply.
“I know. That is, I see all that more clearly now. I was going to speak
of it--it's one of the things, but first.... Mr. Doane, will you write to
me? Once in a while? I mean, will you--could you find time to answer if
I write to you? You see, it isn't going to be easy, over there. I've got
to go clean outside my own crowd. And outside my family. They won't one
of them understand what I'm up to. Not one. And--when you come right
down to it, I suppose it's a question whether the thing licks me or not.
But”--his shoulders squared; he looked directly into that kind, deeply
shadowed face--“I don't believe it will lick me!”
“No,” said Doane, “it won't lick you.”
“I shall never be able to shake China off now. It's got me. And I don't
know a thing about it yet. Of course I shall be reading and studying it
up.”
“I'll send you a book once in a while.”
“And I know I'm coming back out here someday. But it won't be as my
father wants me to come. You see, I'll have money.”
“A great responsibility, Rocky.”
“I know. I'm beginning to see that. But--I know all this must sound
pretty young to you!--but I'm afraid I shall be leaning on you
sometimes--”
“Write to me at those times.”
“All right. I will.”
“There is an amazing health in the American people.”
“Yes--that's so, of course.”
“It's a curiously blundering people, of course. And there's a hard,
really a Teutonic strain--that blend of practical hard-headedness, even
of cruelty, with sentimentality--”
Rocky's brows came together. Mr. Doane and his father plainly didn't use
that word “sentimental” in the same sense, “--it comes down to a strain
of--well, something between the old Anglo-Saxonism and the modern
Prussianism. It's in us--in our driving business tactics, our narrow
moral intolerance, our insistence on standardizing vulgar ideas--forcing
every individual into a mold--in our extraordinary glorification of the
salesman. We seem to have a good deal both of the British complacency
and the rough aggressiveness of the German. But the health is
there--wonderfully. What America needs is beauty--not the self-conscious
swarming after it of earnest and misguided suburban ladies--but a quiet
sense of the thing itself. Beauty--and simplicity--and patience--and
tolerance--and faith. Prosperity has for the moment wrecked faith there.
Simply too much money. But you'll find health growing up everywhere.
Just let yourself grow with it. You've been deeply impressed by China.
But if I were you, I'd let all that take care of itself. Never mind what
you may come to feel next year or ten years from now. It may be mainly
China or mainly America. Just work, and let yourself grow.”
At the door they clasped hands warmly. And then, finally, Rocky got to
the point:
“Mr. Doane--this is what I wanted to say--I saw Hui Fei this afternoon,
and--”
Doane was silent; but still gripped his hand, “--and we talked things
all out. She knows I'm--knows I'm going back. And--this is it.... You
don't mind my.... I think you ought to find time to go over there and see
her. She seems puzzled about--I don't know quite how to say all this.
You know how I've felt--feel.... Of course, the thing is to look the
facts in the face. I hope I'm man enough to do that.” His voice was
unsteady now. “I'm not the one. I never was. She was clear about it,
to-day, but... I think you ought to see her. Oh, I'm sure it isn't just
her father's will....”
Rocky found himself, without the slightest sense of ungentleness on the
part of Mr. Doane, through the door and confusedly saying his good-by
before the patient clerks and the waiting crowd in the anteroom. He
walked back to the hotel with a warm glow of admiration and friendship
in his heart. There would be--he knew, even then--sad hours, probably
bitter hours, in the long struggle to come. But this talk was going to
help.
On Doane the boy's announcement had an almost crushing effect. His
spirit was not adjusted to happiness. The terrific strain of the work
was a blessing. He framed, that night and during the following day,
innumerable little chits to Hui Fei--pretexts, all, for a visit that
needed no pretext. And the day passed. Self-consciousness was upon him;
and a constant mental difficulty in making the situation credible. And
there was the pressure of time; an awareness that to Hui Fei--perhaps
even to the Witherys--his silence would soon demand a stronger
explanation than the mere pressure of business. He had to keep reminding
himself that the girl was helpless, that he himself was the only
guardian whose authority she could recognize; his reason whispering from
moment to moment that she would not touch the money he had so promptly
put at her disposal. No, she would wait.
It was his old friend Henry Withery who brought him to it; appearing
late on the Saturday afternoon, determined to drag him off for
dinner.... Withery, looking every one of his forty-eight years, patient
resignation in the dusty blue eyes, and a fine net of wrinkles about
them. His slight limp was the only reminder of tortures inflicted by the
Boxers in 1900, out in Kansuh. He had taken over the T'ainan-fu mission
for a year after Doane left the church in 1907; and during two years now
had been here in Shanghai.
“There's no good killing yourself here, Grig,” he said. “We've not had
ten minutes with you yet, remember. And we must talk over that girl's
affairs. She's very sweet about it, but it's plain that she's waiting on
you.”
His tone was genial; quite the tone of their earlier friendship, with
nothing left of the constraint that had come into their relationship
during Doane's difficult years on the river--the years that couldn't
be explained, even to old friends.... And Withery knew nothing of the
curious personal problem of his and Hui Fei's lives. His manner made
that clear.... It remained to be seen whether Mrs. Withery knew.
.... Doane, it will be noted, was still struggling, as of settled habit,
with the thought of freeing the girl from the obligation laid upon her.
But Mrs. Withery didn't know, didn't dream. She was quite her
whole-souled self. He might have been Hui Fei's father, from anything in
her manner. He felt a conspirator.
Her father's tragic end accounted altogether for the girl's silence. She
met him naturally, though, with a frank grip of the hand.
It was a pleasant enough family dinner. They talked the revolution,
of course. No one in Shanghai at the beginning of that November talked
anything else. Hui Fei quietly listened; her face very sober in repose.
She seemed--she had always seemed--more delicately feminine in Western
costume. She was more slender now; her face a perfect oval under
the smooth, deep-shadowed hair. Her dark eyes, deep with stoically
controlled feeling, rested on this or that speaker. Doane found them
once or twice resting thoughtfully on himself.
After dinner Mrs. Withery, with a glance at her husband, laid a
sympathetic hand on Hui's shoulder.
“My dear,” she said, all friendly sympathy, “Mr. Doane's time is
precious, these days and nights. I know that you should take this
opportunity to talk over your problems with him. I shall be bustling
about here--suppose you take him out into the courtyard.”
Without a word they walked out there; stood by a gnarled tree whose
twisted limbs extended over the low tiled roofs. There was a little
light from the windows. The long silence that followed was the most
difficult moment yet. Doane found himself breathing rather hard. In Hui
Fei he felt the calm Oriental patience that underlay all her Western
experiences. She simply waited for him to speak.
He looked down at her, quite holding his breath. She seemed almost frail
out here, in the half light. He was fighting, with all his strength and
experience, the warm sweet feelings that drugged his brain.
“My dear--” he began; then, when she looked frankly up at him,
hesitated. He hadn't known he was going to begin with any such phrase as
that. He got on with it.... “I'm wondering how I can best help you. If I
were a younger man there would be no question as to what I would have to
say to you.” Utterly clumsy, of course; with little light ahead; just a
dogged determination to serve her without hurting her.
“I think a good 'eal of wha' they tell me you're doing”--thus Hui Fei,
in a low but clear voice; not looking up now. “I've almos' envied you.
Helping li' that.”
“It must be hard for you--with all your mental interests--to sit quietly
here.”
“My min' goes on, of course,” she said. “Yes, it isn' ver' easy.”
This was getting them nowhere. Doane, after a deep breath, took command
of the situation. Sooner or later he would have to do that.
“Hui, dear,” he said now--very quietly, but directly, “this is a
difficult situation for both of us. The only thing, of course, is to
meet it as frankly as we can. I learned to love your father--”
She glanced up at this; her eyes glistened as the light caught them.
“--but we can not blindly follow his wishes. He had seen and felt the
West, but he died a Manchu.”
Her soft lips framed the one word, “Yes.” The softness of her whole
face, indeed, was disconcerting; it was all sober emotion, that she
plainly didn't think of trying to hide.
“And I'm sure you'll understand me when I tell you that I can not accept
his legacy.”
She startled him now with the low but direct question: “Why not?”
“My dear....” He found difficulty in going on.
“I don' know what I ought 'o say.” He barely heard this; stopped a
little. “I don' know wha' to do.”
“Can't you, dear--isn't there some clear vision in your heart--don't you
see your way ahead? Remember, you will always have me to help--if I can
help. It will mean everything to me to be your dearest friend.”
“I want 'o work with you,” she murmured.
“I haven't dared believe that possible,” he said thoughtfully.
“Do you wan' me to?”
“Yes. But it has to be clearer than that.” He was stupid again; he
sensed it himself. “There is so much of life ahead of you. It's got to
be clear that wherever your heart may lead you, child--that you shall
have my steady friendship. The rest of it can grow as it may.”
“I wan'....” He couldn't make out the words; he bent down close to her
lovely face. “I want 'o marry you.”
They both stood breathless then. Timidly her hand crept into his and
nestled there.
“Tha's the trouble”--her voice was a very little stronger--“there isn'
anything else. It's ever'thing you think an' do--ever'thing you believe.
We're both between the worl's, so....”
The noise in his brain was like the pealing of cathedral bells at
Christmas time. Yet in this rush of ecstatic feeling he suddenly saw
clearly. The fabric of their companionship had hardly begun weaving.
All his experience, his delicacy, his fine human skill, must be employed
here. Ahead lay happiness! It was still nearly incredible.... And
there lay--extending before them in a long vista--their intense common
interest. The thing was to make a fine success of it. Build through the
years.
And happiness was greatly important. He had so nearly missed it....
Looking up through the branches of the old tree, he smiled.
Then he led her into the house.
“Have you had your talk already?” asked Mrs. Withery pleasantly.
“We've settled everything,” said Doane. “We're going to be married.”
“Very soon,” said Hui Fei.
THE END