CHAPTER LXIII
Years—of mingled pleasure and pain, as most human years are—have passed.
The Gaylors jog on. Gaylor still chafes for a son—and knows that his wife will not again accept motherhood. But, understanding her scruple but little, not sympathizing with it at all, he cleaves to her loyally—keeping the vows he gave her in marriage.
And he has his dogs and guns, his horses, a host of friends, a young cousin whose name also is Tom Gaylor, an upstanding public school boy whom he likes very much, and he has his cabbages and his tenants.
There are many unhappier women in London society than Ivy Gaylor, and not a few who are less envied. But her heart is buried deep in a tiny grave in Dorset. As long as she lives she will grieve and long for her little lost baby—grieve and will not be comforted.
Through obedience, renunciation and service Ruben Sên has won through to happiness.
He obeyed his father, renounced his young and bounding love, and all his life is a service of love to his mother. He has made her happiness; he has paid Sên King-lo’s debt. And he knows that in the gods’ good time he will go again to China—to live there among his own people, serving them, living for them, when his mother, gone on-High to Sên King-lo, no longer has earthly need of his services or his love.
He is content to wait.
Mrs. Sên and Ruben her son live more and more at Ashacres, the bond between them closer, sweeter, firmer, as the slow moons come and go over Sên King-lo’s grave in the churchyard of the old squat-towered Church of Brent-on-Wold.
Sên Ruben has set his soul against regret and sorrow, and regret and sorrow have left him.
He does not forget—he is not of that caliber—but he remembers in calmness, as he remembers in tenderness that still is quick, C’hi Yamei, in robes of lemon and blue and jade, yellow roses in her hands, her little Chinese dogs frisking about her as she walks, facing the sunrise among the bamboos and wild white roses of Shan-si.
He has chosen his life. He knows his future as the man whose character is strong and fine always may, because it builds that future, since always character is destiny.
While Sên Ruby lives he will be with her at Ashacres. When her spirit has gone to his father’s he will make his last long earthly journey—across the Atlantic, across the Pacific, homing back to Ho-nan to live for Ho-nan, to live for the Sêns. Some boy of his clan shall be his by adoption, that Sên King-lo’s grave and Sên Ruby’s never shall lack descendants to worship at them.
For he will not go back to Ho-nan alone.
He has promised Sên Ruby—she demanded the promise—that her coffin and Sên King-lo’s shall rest in one grave in the old Sên burial garden, beside the grave of Sên Ya Tin, with the temple and pai-fang the old Queen-one of Sênland builded to Sên King-lo, sending their jeweled shafts of love and understanding over the yellow roses, through the quivering bamboos, to lie on their graves.