CHAPTER LVI
If he had not found his mother at home when he went in, Sên would have gone to her the next morning after learning by ’phone whether he’d find her at Ivy’s in Dorset or at Ashacres.
It brooked no delay now and Ruben’s heart wished none.
He would speak with his mother at once, and she would send for Kow Li, and send Kow her mei jên to C’hi Ng Yelü.
Sên’s heart reeled with music—the old, old music of which love makes every great lover a maestro.
Mrs. Sên had come, a servant told Ruben.
To-morrow he would speak to her, but not to-night, Sên determined, when he saw her sitting alone at the tea-table. He saw instantly that she was tired and lonely. Then saw the welcome and joy that leapt in her face and eyes as she held out her hands.
To-day and to-night were his mother’s, hers only.
He had no fear that she would seek to thwart or dissuade him. He hoped that she would welcome his news and the request he would make. But not to-night!
His cup had brimmed over to-day. He would fill and sweeten hers to-night.
Ruben Sên was a great lover as Sên King-lo his father had been. They were great lovers because their souls were great and because their loves were few.
Sên King-lo had loved two women: his mother, who had died while he was a babe, but whom all his life he had loved well—though he could not remember her—and the English girl who now was his widow Ruby Sên.
Sên Ruben loved three women and never was to love another; he loved his mother. Ivy, his sister, and C’hi Yamei, the daughter of C’hi Ng Yelü.
Strain and age faded out of Mrs. Sên’s face. Ivy would come to love the little baby; all would be well with Ivy again. That Ivy ever would come to forgive and wholly love her, Mrs. Sên scarcely hoped now—could not hope, after the bitter experience of the chasm between them that Ivy’s expectant motherhood had made. But let that go! Ivy’s own happiness was all the mother asked. In Ivy’s she would find her own, and in Ruben. The mother of such a son need not keep sorrow long.
Sên rang for fresh tea and cut her cake; he waited on her, petted her, amused her.
The woman’s face cleared; presently it flushed like a delicate sun-warmed rose. Her eyes were sparkling when Ruben left her at the door of her dressing-room, and she was laughing when she rang for her maid.
They dined alone. The meal was gay.
They sat alone together in her own sitting-room, and all their gay loving talk was of themselves.
It was the mother who exclaimed how scandal-late it was—“almost the Hour of the Ox, Sên Ruben! You think I can’t tell the time in Chinese, do you? I can tell a lot of things in Chinese, Ruben!”
Ruben caught his mother in his arms and held her close and long before he kissed her good night; an English kiss he always had given her.
He lingered a little in her room after his mother had gone, touching things that were hers, standing a long time in front of his father’s picture, regarding it gravely; and his heart spoke to the heart of Sên King-lo.
Ruben’s love of his father—whom he could not remember—always had been living and intimate, as Sên King-lo’s love had been of the mother he could not remember. Such abiding love is not unusual—in China.
In his own room Ruben stood a long, long time looking across London toward Westminster.
The house was very still.
All London seemed hushed in sleep.
Did C’hi Yamei sleep?
How good the gods were!
How rich he was!
What perfect happiness!
His mother and Yamei—both his.
To-morrow—it was to-morrow—he would sit by his mother and tell her his story, sharing its sweetness and joy with her.
Sên Ruby whom his father had loved—and Sên C’hi Yamei his bride, whom he adored!
The gods were on-High; all was well in the world of Sên Ruben!
Sên Ruben’s eyes were misty as he turned away from his open window.
It was not a Chinese room. It might have been any rich young Englishman’s room, though few such were as simply furnished. But an ivory Kwan stood near his bed, a far more beautiful portraiture of the “Hearer-of-cries,” than the pictured Kwan that hung beside his mother’s bed as it had hung for years beside Sên King-lo’s narrow bed.
And Ruben had a few Chinese trifles tucked away in a drawer.
He found a bundle of tapers—a red prayer too—and lit incense and prayer paper before his ivory Kwan Yin-ko.
Ruben slept well and late. And so did Mrs. Sên.
But C’hi Yamei was wakeful and restless. C’hi Yamei turned again and again on her pillows until a new day crimsoned over gray London. But Yamei was not unhappy.