CHAPTER LX
Sên stumbled home.
Mrs. Sên looked up with a sunny smile as he came into her room. The effort and strain it cost her to show a complacence she did not feel were so sharp and hard that they blinded her to the change in him—a gait that shambled a little, pallor, hurt eyes, a mouth clenched and drawn.
“Has Kow been?” Ruben asked abruptly.
“And gone. He should be back before long, unless they exchange incredibly long Chinese speeches. I told them to send him up here—and told him to come up as soon as he did get back. Rue, he was a picture! I never saw such a sight in my life. If Mr. C’hi is not vastly impressed by the sumptuous get-up of my mei jên, all I can say is, he ought to be!”
Ruben nodded—as nearly brightly as he could, and sat down wearily.
“Oh—well, it doesn’t matter,” he murmured listlessly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter? What doesn’t matter? Why, Rue, what is wrong?” Her son’s distress had reached her. “Cousin Charles didn’t rag you?”
“No,” Sên answered with a weary smile.
“Of course not! And you would have snapped your fingers at it if he had. But something has gone wrong since you left me. What?”
Ruben Sên looked full in his mother’s face. The misery in his eyes knifed her; she saw his set face break, his clenched mouth waver and twitch.
“Ruben!”
Before Sên could answer—if he could have answered just then—Kow Li came through the door, closed it behind him, and bowed profoundly to them both.
There was no Chinese impassivity on that old yellow face. It blazed with joy and pride as unmistakably as his bedecked person blazed and crackled with embroidered satins and fur-lined, coral-buttoned silks. The slant old eyes twinkled like glow-worms, his thin lips were pursed in triumph, and he waved his tiny ridiculous unfurled fan with all the pomp with which a peacock spreads his tail. Kow Li radiated congratulation, joy and self-complacency.
Ruben Sên smothered a groan; the woman choked back a sigh; she had had scant hope that C’hi would send back an unfavorable reply. She had tried not to hope it but her first glance at Kow Li assured her that Kow had not failed, scarcely had needed to ask, and that C’hi Ng Yelü had not even pretended to be less than pleased and willing, but had scorned to assume towards the suit of a Sên the strong parental reluctance that would have been the better Chinese etiquette. C’hi Ng Yelü had welcomed the proposal, would make no difficulties at all of any sort, was fully prepared to cut out all the preliminary bargainings and cross-negotiations that even an easy-going C’hi Ng Yelü who had a shred of family self-respect must have insisted upon in China. The match was made! Ruby Sên’s breast quivered once in spite of her. But her smile was cordial and serene.
And Ruben saw what she saw. C’hi had given him Yamei!
And he must slaughter the gift—leave it untouched—thrust it back!
He had heard his father’s voice in Snow’s study. It was not Sir Charles who had convinced him; it was Sên King-lo who had convinced and sentenced him; sentenced him to lifelong soul-ache, everlasting longing and loneliness; sentenced him to put slight upon the maid he worshiped heart and body; sentenced him too, perhaps, to hurt her!
It did not occur to Sên Ruben to evade the sentence. A Chinese son must pay his father’s debts to the last fraction of a cash, to the last husk of one millet seed.
Sên King-lo had sinned against his blood—had defiled the blood of China and defiled his Clan. Reparation must be made; the mixed blood must not continue to be dispersed through Sên veins. The debt must be paid. Sên King-lo’s son must make the bitter sacrificial payment.
So Sên Ruben saw it.
What he might suffer—or C’hi Yamei—was nothing to the cleansing of a father’s crime, less than nothing to the rehabilitation of the honor, the family purity, of the Sêns.
Ruben Sên did not flinch; he knew that he should not flinch again. But his soul was sick, his heart was blistered, and his flesh ached.
In itself the hideous payment was terrible; but there was more! He must give no sign. While they lived never must his mother know; never must she suspect why he did what irrevocably was his to do.
That, perhaps, was the hardest of all and doubly hard; for not only must he hide that he was hurt, and that he had made a sacrifice, but—for his mother’s sake—he must brand himself poltroon, turn-coat, jilt.
He must do a noble thing as if it were a foulness; he must make his sacrifice look a treachery.
Sir Charles would know. But Sir Charles Snow would not speak. No one else must even suspect, least of all his mother.
No one—but C’hi Ng Yelü. Even the gods would grant him that—that he might explain—show his soul—to Yamei’s father. And C’hi Ng Yelü would tell Yamei what he would.
He must leave C’hi Yamei to her father now, C’hi Yamei whose life he had thought to keep and cherish in his own.
He should not see Yamei again.
He would not see Yamei again.
Kow Li was bursting to speak. But Kow Li far sooner would have died than have smirched this great occasion by such foul breach of Chinese etiquette.
Kow Li’s lips twitched, his petticoat rattled with the agitation of his knees; but he might not speak until they questioned or bade him say—the lady Sên Ruby who had sent him on her perfumed errand or the lord Sên Ruben who was his worm-and-servant’s master.
Ruben rose, and stood facing them both. His face was grave but it was calm; and his voice was clear and steady.
“The lord C’hi Ng Yelü did not repulse our offer.”
“Oh, great and worshiped master”—Kow Li had to speak.
But Sên checked him with an upheld hand. “I regret that he did not, for there will be no such marriage.”
“Ruben!”
“I have changed my mind, Mother,” Sên told her quietly.
“I do not believe it! Changed your mind! You, Ruben!”
Nor did Kow Li believe it for an instant. The old Sên servant did not attempt to speak; he could not have spoken, had Sên Ruben bade him. But a long angry hiss lashed out from between his grinning lips—a hiss that was Kow Li’s oath to rip out the life of the only Englishman he ever had entirely liked and respected, the one Western that he had ever trusted.
Kow Li knew who had done this. Mrs. Sên had told him that Ruben had gone to Snow in courtesy to tell him what was afoot. And Snow had found some hellish way to prevent Sên Ruben’s purpose.
Presently—when he found leisure and convenience—he would take the life of Sir Charles Snow. But that was nothing at this moment; one did not turn from the jungle path to crush a flea when one hunted a tiger. There was more importance than that small thing to do now; the Englishman’s dastard necromancy was to undo now. It should not stand or prevail. Sir Charles Snow who had pretended friendship and loyalty for Sên King-lo and for Sên Ruben, who had pretended that he liked and revered China, should not spoil the life of Sên Ruben and dishonor and balk the best hope of the Sêns. Kow was bitterly disappointed in Sên Ruben—humiliated that a Sên had so proved weakling, cheap wax to be melted by a mere Englishman’s treacherous breath.
There is not much that is bitterer than to despise what we most love. Kow Li was despising Sên Ruben now. Kow Li never had despised a Sên before, he who had served them man and boy for all his lifetime, and in the service of his fathers had served them faithfully for thousands of years.
Why had the vile Englishman wrought this thing? Gods! because he had some other wife of his own selection whom he intended Sên Ruben to wed—an English wife!
And again a long sound of a scorpion that hissed its rage thrashed across the room.
“Ruben,” Mrs. Sên asked, “what did Cousin Charles say to you? You have not changed your mind. It is useless for you to tell me that; I know you too well. It is absurd! You have not and, if you had, your mother would tell you that you must not. You told me yourself that you had as good as told Miss C’hi and probably her father has told her now. You are Sên King-lo’s son; I shall not forget that, even if you do!”
Kow Li’s being ko’towed to a white woman! It had not happened before.
“Mother,” Sên answered gently, “it was not Cousin Charles. I cannot explain now—it would take too long—and there is a thing I must do at once. The credit or discredit is not Sir Charles’—it is my own, you may believe me. And we must leave it at that—for to-day.”
“If you say so, you think so, I know. But I am sure that it was,” Mrs. Sên persisted. “He tried to prevent our marriage, your father’s and mine.” Kow Li’s old eyes widened before they narrowed to a line; he had not known that before. “I forgave him—a long time afterwards. But I ought to have remembered, and not have encouraged you to go to him to-day. He did all he could to spoil my life once; he shall not spoil yours!”
“Nothing shall,” Sên promised gravely. “I give you my word of honor, Mother,” he added, “that not an iota of the responsibility is his—Cousin Charles’.”
“Whoever—whatever is responsible, you simply cannot do it, my son. What would your father say if he knew? Over and over I have heard him say that a Chinese promise cannot be broken. Your father would be ashamed of you, Ruben.”
She did not see Ruben wince at that, but Kow Li saw, and a glimmer of the truth flickered towards his mind—and Kow Li was sorely troubled.
“I am ashamed of you, Ruben. I never thought to be that! But you cannot do it; you cannot break your word to the woman you have wooed—a Chinese girl, Ruben! Your Sên blood—Chinese blood—has been your great pride. You have seemed English because you look it, and because you have lived here all your life. But you have been Chinese always. I have been glad that you were, and I have wished that he might have known it. Perhaps he does know it, Ruben; know that I bore him a Chinese son. I hope he does. You must be Chinese in this, Ruben. There is divorce in China—not frequently, but there is; but a Chinese betrothal never is broken; even death cannot break it.”
Kow Li gestured confirmation gravely.
“There is no betrothal,” Sên reminded them. “Nothing makes one or binds either family until the first gifts have been exchanged. No one is pledged—thank God! Kow has sounded C’hi—that is all.”
“Rubbish!”
“I am sorry to seem in the wrong—in this—to you, Mother,” Sên pleaded, “but I must take my way in it.”
“Think of that poor girl!”
“I shall think of C’hi Yamei while I live—as I have since that first time at Burlington House. Kow—old friend—we are sorry to have sent you on a bootless errand. Go now.”
Kow Li never had disobeyed a Sên. He backed towards the door. He looked to have shriveled; all his splendid raiment hung about him limply. Kow Li went without a word; at the door he bowed to them both profoundly. He did not look again at Sên Ruben his master, but he gave Sên Ruby a deep look of supplication.
She might succeed when they two were alone! And, if she did, Kow Li would worship her as he worshiped the Spirit of Sên Ya Tin.
“Rue”—she held out her hand, and Sên went to her, and sat down beside her on the arm of her chair, and touched her hair with his hand—“it was rather curt dismissal for poor old Kow that! But we’ll make it up to him! Now, dear, that we are alone—just you and I—you’ll explain?”
“Not to-day, Mother. I can’t stand much more now—and I have something to do that is not easy.”
“Is it something about the C’his?—tell me that much,” the mother whispered.
“No!”
The puzzled woman knew that Ruben had answered her truthfully.
She left it then—for the present. She would see Charles before she probed or fretted Ruben again.
They stayed so while her little jeweled clock ticked several minutes into the past.
Then Ruben bent down and kissed his mother.
“I am going out again, dear. But I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“Not—” she began.
“Yes—to C’hi Ng Yelü. I must explain to him as far as I can; and I must not put it off. Miss C’hi was going to the Mortons’ this afternoon. If she did, C’hi has said nothing to her yet. And I would rather speak with him when she is not at home. We might meet accidentally—and I’d rather not. I’ll be back for dinner, dear.”
Mrs. Sên made no attempt to dissuade or to delay him; she did not dare.