IF Brachey had approached that East Gate a year later he would have rolled comfortably into the city in a rickshaw (which has followed the white man into China) along a macadamized road bordered by curbing of concrete from the new railway station. But in the spring of 1907 there was no station, no pavement, not a rickshaw. The road was a deep-rutted way, dusty in dry weather, muddy in wet, bordered by the crumbling shops and dwellings found on the outskirts of every Chinese city. A high, bumpy little bridge of stone spanned the moat.
Over this bridge rode Brachey, in his humble cart, sitting fiat under a span of tattered matting, surrounded and backed by his boxes and bales of food and water and his personal baggage. John and the cook rode behind on mules. The muleteers walked.
Under the gate were lounging soldiers, coolies, beggars, and a money-changer or two with their bags of silver lumps, their strings of copper cash and their balanced scales. Two of the soldiers sprang forward and stopped the cart. Despite their ragged uniforms (of a dingy blue, of course, like all China, and capped with blue turbans) these were tall, alert men. Brachey was rapidly coming to recognize the Northern Chinese as a larger, browner, more vigorous type of being than the soft little yellow men of the South with whom he had long been familiar in the United States as well as in the East. A mure dangerous man, really, this northerner.
Brachey leaned back on his baggage and watched the little encounter between his John and the two soldiers. Any such conversation in China is likely to take up a good deal of time, with many gestures, much vehemence of speech and an 'ncreasing volume of interference from the inevitable curious crowd. The cook and the two muleteers joined the argument, Brachey had learned before the first evening that this interpreter of his had no English beyond the few pidgin phrases common to all speech along the coast. And since leaving Shau T'ing it had transpired that the man's Tientsin-Peking dialect sounded strange in the ears of Hansi John was now in the position of an interpreter who could make headway in neither of the languages in which he was supposed to deal. Brachey didn't mind. It kept the man still. And he had learned years earlier that the small affairs of routine traveling can be managed with but few spoken words. But just now, idly watching the little scene, he would have liked to know what it meant.
Finally John came to the cart, followed by shouts from the soldiers and the crowd.
“Card wanchee,” he managed to say.
“Card? No savvy,” said Brachey.
“Card,” John nodded earnestly.
Brachey produced his personal card, bearing his name in English and the address of a New York club.
John studied it anxiously, and then passed it to one of the soldiers. That official fingered it; turned it over; discussed it with his fellow. Another discussion followed.
Brachey now lost interest. He filled and lighted his pipe; then drew from a pocket a small leather-bound copy of The Bible in Spain, opened at a bookmark, and began reading.
There was a wanderer after his own heart—George Borrow! An eager adventurer, at home in any city of any clime, at ease in any company, a fellow with gipsies, bandits, Arabs, Jews of Gibraltar and Greeks of Madrid, known from Mogadore to Moscow. Bor-row's missionary employment puzzled him as a curious inconsistency; his skill at making much of every human contact was, to the misanthropic Brachey, enviable; his genius for solitude, his self-sufficiency in every state, whether confined in prison at Madrid or traversing alone the dangerous wilderness of Galicia, were to Brachey points of fine fellowship. This man needed no wife, no friend. His enthusiasm for the new type of human creature or the unfamiliar tongue never weakened.
The cart jolted, creaking, forward, into the low tunnel that served as a gateway through the massive wall. A soldier walked on either hand. Two other soldiers walked in the rear. The crowd, increasing every moment, trailed off behind. Small boys jeered, even threw bits of dirt and stones, one of which struck a soldier and caused a brief diversion.
They creaked on through the narrow, crowded streets of the city. A murmur ran ahead from shop to shop and corner to corner. Porters, swaying under bending bamboo, shuffled along at a surprising pace and crowded past. Merchants stood in doorways and puffed at lung pipes with tiny nickel bowls as the strange parade went by.
Finally it stopped. Two great studded gates swung inward, and the cart lurched into the courtyard of an inn.
Brachey appropriated a room, sent John for hot water, and coolly shaved. Then he stretched out on the folding cot above its square of matting, refilled his pipe and resumed his Borrow.
Within half an hour fresh soldiers appeared, armed with carbines and revolvers, and settled themselves comfortably, two of them, by his door; two others taking up a position at the compound gate.
They brought a letter, in Chinese characters, on red paper in a buff and red envelope, which Brachey examined with curiosity.
“No savvy,” he said.
But the faithful John, inarticulate from confusion and fright could not translate.
Between this hour in mid-afternoon and early evening, six of these documents were passed in through Brachey's door. With the last one, John appeared to see a little light.
“Number one policeman wanchee know pidgin belong you,” he explained laboriously.
That would doubtless mean the police minister. So they wanted to know his business! But as matters stood, with no other medium of communication than John's patient but bewildered brain, explanation would be difficult. Brachey reached for his book and read on. Something would have to happen, of course. It really hardly mattered what. He even felt a little relief. The authorities might settle his business for him. Pack him off. It would be better. M. Pourmont's letter to Griggsby Doane had burned in his pocket for two days. It had seemed to press him, like the hand of fate, to Betty's very roof. Now, since he had become—the simile rose—a passive shuttlecock, a counterplay of fate might prove a way out of his dilemma.
He had chicken fried in oil for his dinner. And John ransacked the boxes for dainties; as if the occasion demanded indulgence.
At eight John knocked with shaking hands at his door. It was dark in the courtyard, and a soft April rain was falling. Two fresh soldiers stood there, each with carbine on back and a lighted paper lantern in band. A boy from the inn held two closed umbrellas of oiled paper.
“Go now,” said John, out of a dry throat.
“Go what side?” asked Brachey, surveying the little group.
John could not answer.
Brachey compressed his lips; stood there, knocking his pipe against the door-post. Then, finally, he put on overcoat and rubber overshoes, took one of the umbrellas, and set forth.
They walked a long way through twisting, shadowy streets, first a soldier with the boy from the inn, then Brachey under his umbrella, then John under another, then the second soldier. Dim figures finished past them. Once the quaint waihng of stringed instruments floated out over a compound wall. They passed through a dark tunnel that must have been one of the city gates; then on through other streets.
They stopped at a gate house. A door opened, and yellow lamplight fell warmly across the way. Brachey found himself stepping up into a structure that was and yet was not Chinese. A smiling old gate-keeper received him with striking courtesy, and, to his surprise, in English.
“Will you come with me, sir?”
John and the soldiers waited in the gate house.
Brachey followed the old man across a paved court. His pulse quickened. Where were they bringing him?
Through a window he saw a white woman sitting at a desk, under an American lamp.
He mounted stone steps, left his coat and hat in a homelike front hall. The servant led the way up a flight of carpeted stairs.
On the top step, Brachey paused. At the end of the corridor, where a chair or two, a table, bookcase, and lamp made a pleasant little lounge, a young woman sat quietly reading. She looked up; sat very still, gazing straight at him out of a white face. It was Betty. His heart seemed to stop.
Then a man stood before him. A little, dusty blond man. They were clasping hands. He was ushered rather abruptly into a study. The door closed.
The little man said something twice. It proved to be, “I am Mr. Boatwright,” and he was looking down at the much-thumbed card; Brachey's own card.
Brachey was fighting to gather his wits. Why hadn't he spoken to Betty, or she to him? Would she wait there to see him? If not, how could he reach her?... He must reach her, of course. He knew now that through all his confusion of mind and spirit he had come straight to her.
The little man was nervous, Brachey observed; even jumpy. He hurried about, drawing down the window-shades. Then he sat at a desk and with twitching fingers rolled a pencil about. He cleared his throat.
“You've come in from the railroad?” he asked.... “Yes? Do you bring news?”
“No,” said Brachey coldly.
“What gossip have your boys picked up along the road, may I ask?”
Back and forth, back and forth, his fingers twitched the pencil. Bradley's eyes narrowly followed the movement. After a little, he replied:
“I have no information from my boys.”
“Seven years ago”—thus Mr. Boatwright, huskily, “they killed all but a few of us. Now the trouble has started again—a similar trouble They attacked our station up at So T'ung yesterday. Mr. Doane is on his way there now. He left this noon. That is why they referred your case to me. Oh. yes, I should have told you—the tao-tai, Chang Chili Ting, has asked me to get from you an explanation of your appearance here without a passport. But perhaps your card explains. You come simply as a journalist?”
Brachey bowed.
“You have no connection w ith the Ho Shan Company?”
“None”
“Chang is taking up your case this evening with the provincial judge, Pao Ting Chuan. Pao is to give you an audience to-morrow, I believe, at noon. I will act as your interpreter.” Mr. Boatwright paused, and sighed. “I am very busy.”
“I regret this intrusion on your time,” said Brachey. It was impossible for him to be more than barely courteous to such a man as this.
“Oh, that's all right,” Boatwright replied vaguely. “The audience will probably be at noon. Then you will come back here with me for tiffin.” He sighed again; then went on. “They shot one of Pourmont's white men. Through the lungs.... You must have seen Pourmont at Ping Yang, as you came through.”
“I called on him.”
“Didn't he tell you?”
“No. He advised against my coming on.”
“Of course. It's really very difficult. He wants us all to get out, as far as his compound. But, you see, our predicament is delicate. Already they've attacked one of our outposts. But the trouble may not spread. We can't draw in our people and leave at the first sign of difficulty. It would be interpreted as weakness not only on our part but on the part of all the white governments as well. Mr. Doane, I know”—he said this rather regretfully—“would never consent to that.... Mr. Doane is a strong man. We shall all breathe a little more easily when he is safely back. If he should not get back—well, you will see that I must face this situation—-the decision would fall on me. That's why I asked you for news. I have to consider the problem from every angle. We have other stations about the province and we must plan to draw all our people in before we can even consider a general retreat.”
Brachey heard part of this. He wished the man would keep still: His own racing thoughts were with that pale girl in the hall. Was she still there? He must plan. He must be prepared with something to say, if they should meet face to face.
As it turned out, they met on the stairs. Betty was coming up. She paused; looked up, then down. The color stole back into her face; flooded it. She raised her hand, hesitatingly.
Brachey heard and felt the surprise of Boatwright, behind him. The little man said:
“Oh!”
Brachey felt the warm little hand in his. It should have been, easy to explain their acquaintance; to speak of the ship, ask after the Hasmers. In the event, however, it proved impossible, all he could say—he heard the dry hard tones issuing from his own lips:
“Oh, how do you do! How have you been?”
Betty said, after too long a pause, glancing up momentarily at Mr. Boatwright:
“Mr. Brachey was on the steamer.”
It was odd, that little situation. It might so easily have escaped being a situation, had not their own turbulent hearts made it so. But now, of course, neither could explain why they hadn't spoke before he went into the study. And little, distrait Mr. Boatwright was wide-eyed.
The situation passed from mildly bad to a little worse. Betty went on up the stairs; and Brachey went down.
The casual parting came upon Brachey like a tragedy. It was unthinkable. Something personal he must say. On the morrow it might be worse, with a whole household crowding about. It was a question if he could face her at all, that way. He got to the bottom step; then, with an apparently offhand, “I beg your pardon!” brushed past the now openly astonished Boatwright and bolted back up the stairs.
Betty moved a little way along the upper hall; hesitated; glanced back.
He spoke, low, in her ear. “I must see you!”
Her head inclined a little.
“Once! I must see you once. I can't leave it this way. Then I will go. To-morrow—at tiffin—if we can't talk together—you must give me some word. A note, perhaps, telling me how I can see you alone. There is one thing I must tell you.”
“Please!” she murmured. There were tears in her eyes. They scalded his own high-beating heart, those tears.
“You will plan it? I am helpless. But I must see you—tell you!”
He thought her head inclined again.
“You will? You'll give me a note? Oh, promise!”
“Yes,” she whispered; and slipped away into another room.
So this is why he had to come to T'ainan-fu—to tell her the tremendous news that he would one day be free! And she had promised to arrange a meeting!
Never in all his cold life had Jonathan Brachey experienced such a thrill as followed that soft “Yes.”
Not a word passed between him and Boatwright until they stood in the gate house. Then, for an instant, their eyes met. He had to fight back the burning triumph that was in his own. But the little man seemed glad to look away; he was even evasive.
“You'd better be around about half past eleven in the morning,” said he. “We'll go to the yamen from here. We must have blue carts and the extra servants. Good night.” And again he sighed.
That was all. Boatwright let him go like that, back to the dirty, dangerous native inn.
He fell in behind the leading soldier, holding his umbrella high and marching stiffly, like a conqueror, through the sucking mud.
BETTY did not get down for breakfast in the morning. And Mrs. Boatwright sent nothing up.
It was close upon noon when Betty, sketching portfolio under arm, came slowly down the stairs. Mrs. Boatwright, at her desk in the front room, glanced up, called:
“Oh, Betty—just a moment!”
The girl stood in the doorway. She looked so slim and small and, even, childlike, that the older woman, to whom responsibility for all things and persons about her was a habit, knit her heavy brows slightly. What on earth were you to do with the child? What had Griggsby Doane been thinking of in bringing her out here? Anything, almost, would have been better. And just now, of all times!
“Would you mind coming in? There's a question or two I'd like to ask you.”
Betty paused by a rocking chair of black walnut that was upholstered in crimson plush; fingered the crimson fringe. Mrs. Boatwright was marking out a geometrical pattern on the back of an envelope; frowning down at it. The silence grew heavy.
Finally Mrs. Boatwright, never light of hand, rame out with:
“This Mr. Brachey—who is he?”
Betty's fringed lids moved swiftly up; dropped again. “He—he's a writer, a journalist.”
“You knew him on the ship?”
“Yes.”
“You knew him pretty well?”
“I—saw something of him.”
“Do you know why he came out here?”
Betty was silent.
“Do you know?”
“I should think you would ask him.”
Mrs. Boatwright considered this. The girl was selfconscious, a little. And quietly—very quietly—hostile. Or perhaps merely on the defensive.
“Then you do know?”
“No,” replied Betty, with that same very quiet gravity, “I can't say that I do. He is studying China, of course. He came from America to do that, I understand.”
“Did you know he was coming out here?”
Betty slowly shook her head.
“Have you been corresponding with him?”
Another silence. Then this from Betty, without heat:
“I don't understand why you are asking these questions.”
“Are you unwilling to answer them?”
“Such personal questions as that last one—yes.”
“Why?”
“You have no right to ask it.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Boatwright considered. “Hmm!” She controlled her temper and framed her next remark with care. This slip of a girl was unexpectedly in fiber like Griggsby Doane. There was no weakness in her quiet resistance, no yielding. Perhaps she was strong, after all. Though she looked soft enough; gentle like her mother. Perhaps, even, she was a person, of herself. This was a new thought. Mrs. Boatwright drew a parallelogram, then painstakingly shaded the lines.
“We mustn't misunderstand each other, Betty,” she said. “In your father's absence, I am responsible for you. This man has appeared rather mysteriously. His business is not clear. The tao-tai asked Mr. Boatwright to look him up, for it seems he hasn't even an interpreter. He has just been here. They've gone for an audience with the provincial judge. Mr. Boatwright has asked him to come back here for tiffin. Which was rather impulsive, I'm afraid....” She paused; started outlining an octagon. “I may as well come out with it. Mr. Boatwright told me a little of what happened last evening—”
“Of what happened But nothing—”
“If you please! Mr. Boatwright is not a particularly observant man in these matters, but he couldn't help seeing that there is something between you and this Mr. Brachey.... Now, since you see what is in my mind, will you tell me why he is here?”
During this speech Betty stopped fingering the crimson fringe. She stood motionless, holding the portfolio still against her side. A slow color crept into her cheeks. She wouldn't, or couldn't, speak.
“Very well, if you won't answer that question, will you at least tell me something of what you do know about him?”
“I know very little about him,” said Betty now, in a low but clear voice, without emphasis.
“I must try to make you understand this, my dear. Here the man is. Within the hour we are to sit down at tiffin with him. It is growing clearer every minute that Mr. Boatwright's suspicion was correct—
“You have no right to use that word!”
“Well, then, his surmise, say. There is something between you and this man. Don't you think you'd better tell me what it is?”
“There is nothing—nothing at all—that I need tell you.”
“Is there nothing that you ought to tell your father?”
“You can not speak for him.”
“I stand in his place, while he's away It is a responsibility I must accept. You say you know very little about the man?”
Betty bowed.
“You met him on the ship, by chance?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know any of his friends?”
“No.”
“Anything of his past?”
Betty hesitated. Then, as the woman glanced keenly up, she replied:
“Only what he has told me.”
“Do you know, even, whether he is a married man?”
Another long silence fell. Betty stood as quietly as before, looking out of frank brown eyes at the sunlit courtyard and the gate house beyond where old Sun Shao-i, seated on a stool, was having the inside of his eyelids scraped by an itinerant barber.
“Yes,” Betty replied.
“You mean—?”
“I know that he is married.”
Betty, as she threw out this bit of uncompromising truth, was stirred with a thrill of wilder adventure than had hitherto entered her somewhat untrammeled young life. The situation had outrun her experience; she was acting on instinct. There was a sense of shock, too; and of hurt—hurt that Mrs. Boatwright could look, feel, so forbidding. Her firm face, now pressed together from chin to forehead, wrinkled across, squinting unutterable suspicions, stirred a resistance in Betty's breast that for a little time flared into anger.
There was no telling what Mrs. Boatwright felt. Her frown even relaxed, after a moment. The outbreak of moral superiority that Betty looked for didn't come. Instead she said:
“How did you learn this?”
“He told me.”
“Oh, he told you?”
“Well, he wrote a letter before he—went away.”
“Oh. he went away!”
“Yes. He went. Without a word. I didn't know where he was.”
“When was that?”
“When we landed at Shanghai.”
“Hardly three weeks ago. He's here now. Tell me—he wouldn't have gone off like that, of course, leaving such an intimate letter, unless a pretty definite situation had arisen.”
Betty was silent.
“Will you tell me what it was?”
“No.”
“Then—I really have a right to ask this of you—will you give me your word not to see him until your father returns, and then not until you have laid it before him?”
Silence again. The fringed lids fluttered. A small hand reached for the crimson fringe, slim fingers clung there.
Betty's thoughts were running away. She felt the situation now as a form of torture. That grim experienced woman must be partly right, of course; Betty was still so young as to defer mechanically to her elders, and she had no great opinion of herself, of her strength of character or her judgment. She thought of the boys at home, who had been fond of her. ... She thought of Harold Apgar, over there in Korea. He was clean, likable, prosperous; and he wanted to marry her. It really would solve her problems, could she only feel toward him so much as a faint reflection of the glow that Jonathan Brachey had aroused in her. But nothing in her nature answered Harold Apgar. For that matter—and this was the deeply confusing thing—she could not formulate her feeling for Brachey. She couldn't admit that she loved him. The thought of giving her life into his keeping—one day, should he come to her with clean hands; should he ask—was not to be entertained at all. But she couldn't think of him without excitement; and that excitement, last night and to-day, was the dominant fact in her life. She had no plans in which he figured. She was vaguely bent on forgetting him. During the night she had regretted her promise to meet him once more alone. Yet she had given that promise. Given the same situation she would—she knew with a touch of bewilderment that this was so—promise again.
Betty looked appealingly at Mr. Boatwright. Then, meeting with no sympathy, she drew up her little figure.
“You said he was coming here for tiffin, Mrs. Boatwright?”
“Yes.” The woman glanced out at the courtyard. “Any moment.”
“Then I shan't come into the dining-room.” And Betty turned to leave the room.
“Just a moment! Am I to take that as an answer? Are you promising?”
Hetty turned; hesitated; then, suddenly, impulsively, came across the room.
“Mrs. Boatwright,” she said unsteadily—her eyes were filling—“would it do any good for me to talk right out with you? Probably I do need advice.” She faltered momentarily, shocked by the expression on that nearly square face. “Oh, it isn't a terribly serious situation. It really isn't. But that man is honest. He has led an unhappy, solitary life...”
Her voice died out.
“But you said he was married!” cried Mrs. Boatwright explosively.
“Yes, but—”
“'But! But!' Child, what are you talking about?”
There was nothing in Betty's experience of life that could interpret to her mind such a point of view as that really held by the woman before her. She had no means of knowing that they were speaking across a gulf wider and deeper perhaps than has ever before existed between two generations; and that each of them, quite unconsciously, was an extreme example of her type. She turned again.
It was a commotion out at the gate house that arrested her this time. She felt that curious excitement rising up in her heart and brain. Old Sun was springing up from the barber's stool, with his always great dignity brushing that public servitor aside. Then Brachey appeared, followed by Mr. Boatwright.
The wife of that little man now caught the look on Betty's face, the sudden light in her eyes, and rose, alarmed, to her feet. Taking in the situation, she said:
“I shall send something up to your room.”
Betty moved her head wanly in the negative. It was no use explaining to this woman that she couldn't think of food. She moved slowly toward the door. She was unexpectedly tired.
“Where are you going?” asked the older woman shortly.
“I've got to be by myself,” said Betty, apparently less resentful now. It was more a rather faint statement of fact. And she went on out, not so much as answering Mrs. Boatwright's final “But you will not promise?” It wasn't even certain that she heard.
Mrs. Boatwright stood thinking. Betty had run up the stairs. The two men were coming slowly across the courtyard, talking. Or her husband was talking; she could hear his light voice. The other man was silent; a gloomy figure in knickerbockers. She studied him. Already he was catalogued in her mind, and permanently. For nothing that might happen to present Brachey in another light could ever, now, shake her judgment of him. No new evidence of ability or integrity in the man or of genuine misfortune in marriage, would influence her. No play of sympathy, no tolerant reflectiveness, would for a moment occupy her mind. She was a New Englander, with the old non-conformist British insistence on conduct and duty bred in her bone. Her emotional nature was almost the granite of her native lulls. And she was strong as that granite. She feared nothing, shrank from nothing, that could be classified as duty. No Latin flexibility ever softened her vigorous expression of independent thought. Her duty, now, was clear.
She went out into the hall and opened the door.
The two men were just mounting the steps.
“My dear,” began her husband, sensing her mood, glancing up apprehensively, “this is Mr. Brachey. He—
“Yes,” said she, standing squarely in the doorway, “I understand. Mr. Brachey, I can not receive you in this house. You, of course, know why. I must ask you to go at once.”
Then she simply waited; commandingly. From her eyes blazed honest, invincible anger.
Mr. Boatwright caught his breath; stood motionless, very white; finally murmured:
“But, my dear, I'm sure you...”
His wife merely glanced at him.
Brachey stood as she had caught him, on the steps, one foot above the other. His face was expressionless. His eyes fastened on the woman a gaze that might have meant no more than cold curiosity, growing slowly into contempt. Then, after a moment, as quietly, he turned and descended the steps.
Boatwright caught his arm.
“Really, Mr. Brachey—”
“Elmer!” cried his wife shortly. “Let him go!”
But Brachey had already shaken off the detaining hand. He marched straight across the court, stepped into the gate house, and disappeared.
Betty, all hurt confusion, had lingered in the second floor hall. At the first sound of Mrs. Boatwright's firm voice, she stepped, her brain a tangle of little indecisions, to the stair rail.
She ran lightly to the front window and watched Jonathan Brachey as he walked away. Then she shut herself in her own room, telling herself that the time had come to think it all out. But she couldn't think.
Against the granite in Mrs. Boatwright Betty, who understood herself not at all, had to set a quick strong impulsiveness that was certain, given a little time, to work out in positive act. Very little time indeed now intervened between impulse and act. She scribbled a note, in pencil:
“Dear Mr. Brachey—I am going out to sketch in the tennis court. You can reach it by the little side street just beyond our gate house as you come from the city. Please do come!—Betty D.”
She went down the stairs again, portfolio under arm, and on to the gate house. Sun, as she had thought, knew at which inn the white gentleman was stopping, and at Miss Doane's request sent a boy with the chit.
BRACHEY came suddenly into view, around the corner of the wall from the little side street.
He was dressed almost stiffly—not in knickerbockers now, but in what would be called at home a business suit, with stiff white collar and a soft but correct hat; and he carried a stick—like an Englishman, Betty thought, careful to the last of appearances. As if there were no such thing as danger; only stability. She might have been back in the comfortable New Jersey town and he a casual caller. And then, after taking him in, in a quick conflict of moods that left her breathless, she glanced hurriedly about. But only the blank compound wall met her gaze, and tile roofs, with the chimneys of the higher mission house peeping above foliage. The gate was but a narrow opening, near the farther end of the tennis court. No one could see. For that matter, it was to be doubted that any one in the compound knew she was here. And beyond the little street stood another blank wall.... And he had come!
She could not know that she seemed very composed as she laid her portfolio on the camp stool and rose. Then her hand was in his. Her voice said:
“It was nice of you to come. But—”
“When I asked for a meeting—for one meeting....” Her eyes were down; he was set, as for a formal speech.... “It was, as you may imagine, because a matter has arisen that seems to me of the greatest importance.”
She wondered what made him talk like that. As if determined to appeal to her mind. She couldn't listen; not with her mind; she was all feeling. He was a stranger, this man. Yet she had thought tenderly of him. It was difficult.
“You didn't come alone?” she asked, unaware that her manner, too, was formal.
“Yes. Oh, yes! I know the way.”
“But it isn't safe. When I wrote... I heard what Mrs. Boatwright said. I was angry.”
“She was very rude.”
“It seemed as if I ought to get word to you—after that. I promised, of course.”
“But your note surprised me.”
“You thought I wouldn't keep my promise?”
“I wasn't sure that you could.”
“If you hadn't heard from me, what would you have done?”
“I should have left T'ainan this afternoon.”
“But how could you? Where could you go?”
“The provincial judge has assigned four soldiers to me. He was most courteous. He wants me to publish articles in America and England against the Ho Shan Company. He seems a very astute man. And he sent runners to the inn just now with presents.”
“Oh—what were they?”
“Some old tins of sauerkraut. A German traveler must have left them here.”
Betty smiled. Then, sober again, said:
“But you should have brought the soldiers with, you.”
“Oh, no. I preferred being alone.”
“But I don't think you understand. It isn't safe to go about alone now. Not if you're a white man. I don't like to think that I've put you in danger.”
“You haven't. It doesn't matter. As I was about to tell you... you must understand that I assume no interest on your part—I can't do that, of course—but after what happened, that night on the ship...” He was ha\ing difficulty with this set speech of his. Betty averted her face to hide the warm color that came. Why on earth need he come out with it so heavily! Whatever had happened had happened, that was all!... His voice was going on. Something about a divorce. He was to be free shortly. He said that. He sounded almost cold about it, deliberate. And he had come clear out here to T'ainan just to say that. He was assuming, of course. To a painful degree. He seemed to feel that he owed it to her to make some sort of payment... for kissing her... and the payment, apparently, was to be himself. She was moved by a little wave of anger. She managed to say:
“We won't talk about that.”
“I felt that I must tell you. I'll go now, of course.”
“But...”
“As soon as I am free I shall write you. I will ask you, then, to be my wife.”
He drew himself up, at this, stiffly.
Betty's blush was a flush now. She gathered up her drawing tilings; deliberately arranged the sheets of paper in the portfolio.
“I shall say good-by...
“Wait,” said Betty, rather shortly, not looking up “You mustn't go like this.”
There was a long silence. Then, abruptly, he broke out:
“There is no way that I can stay. I would bring you only trouble. And it will be easier for me to go. Of course, I should never have come. It has been very upsetting, I haven't faced it honestly. I wanted to forget you. I've been tortured. And then I learned that you were in danger. I—can't talk about it!” And he clamped his lips shut.
Betty opened her portfolio and slowly fingered the sheets of drawing paper. Her eyes filled; she had to keep them down.
“Where are you going?” Her voice was no more than a murmur. She said it again, a little louder: “Where are you going?”
“Back to the inn. And then, perhaps—”
“You mustn't leave T'ainan.”
“That is the difficulty. I couldn't save myself and leave you here.”
“On your account, I mean. We're safe enough; I've heard them talking at the house. Pao will protect us. And Chang, the tao-tai. But if you were to go out alone—on the highway—”
“Oh, that is nothing. I have soldiers.”
“You said four soldiers. Father was attacked right here in the city, with Chang and his body-guard defending him. They even tore Chang's clothes.”
“I don't care about myself,” said he.
She glanced up at him. She knew he spoke the truth, however bitter his spirit. He was talking on: “Don't misunderstand me....”
“I don't.”
“This journey has been a time of painful self-revelation. I used to think myself strong. That was absurd, of course. I am very weak. In this new trouble my will seems to have broken down. Yes, it has broken down; I may as well admit it. I had no right to fall in love with you. Already I have injured the life of one woman. Now, by merely coming out here in this ill-considered way, I am injuring yours.... The worst of it is these moments of terrible feeling. They make it impossible for me to reason. At one time I can really believe that a fatal accident out here—an accident to myself—would be the best thing that could happen for everybody concerned: but then, in a moment, I become inflamed with feeling, and desire, and a perfectly unreasonable hope.”
“I wonder,” mused Betty, moved now by something near a thrill of power—a disturbing sort of power—“if love is like that.”
“I don't know. I don't even know if this is love Part of the time I resent you.”
“Oh!... Well—yes, I can understand that.”
“Then you resent me?”
“Sometimes.”
“In my lucid moments I sec the thing clearly enough. It is simply an impossible situation. And I have added the final touch by coming out here.” He seated himself on a block of stone, and rested his chin moodily on his two hands. “That is what disturbs me—it frightens me. I have watched other men and women going through this queer confusion we call falling in love. I've pitied them. They were weak, helpless, surrendering the reasoning faculty to sheer emotion. Sometimes, I've thought of them as creatures caught in a net.”
“Oh!” Betty breathed softly, “I've never thought.. I wonder if it is like that.”
“It is with me. I see no happiness in it. I hope you will never have to live through what I've lived through these past few weeks. And now I sit here——weakly—knowing I ought to go at once and never disturb you again. But the thought of going—of saying good-by—is terrible. It's one more thing I seem unable to face.”
Betty was struggling now against tumultuous thoughts. And without overcoming them, without even making headway against them, she spoke:
“I can't let you take all this on yourself. I must have—well made it hard for you, there on the ship. I enjoyed being with you.”
This was all she could say about that.
There was a long, long silence.
Suddenly, with an inarticulate exclamation, he sprang up.
Startled, all impulses, she caught his hand. His fingers tightened about hers.
“What?” she asked, breathless.
“I'll go.”
“Not away from T'ainan?”
“Yes. It's the only thing. After all, it doesn't matter much what happens to any individual. We've got to take that chance. When my—when I'm—free, if I'm alive, and you're alive. I'll write you. I won't come—I'll write. Meanwhile, you can make up your mind. All I'll ask of you then is a decision. I'll accept it.”
Her fingers were twisting around his. She couldn't look up at him, nor he down at her.
“When shall you leave T'ainan?”
“Now—this afternoon.”
“No.”
“But... don't you see?..
“I don't know what to say.”
He knelt beside her.
“You dear child!” he murmured unsteadily, “can't you see what a trouble we're in? It's my fault—”
“It's no more your fault than mine.”
“Oh, but it is! I'm an experienced man. You're a girl. They're right in blaming me.”
“People can't help their feelings.”
“God, if they could! Don't you see, child, that I can't stay near you? I can't look at you—you're so little, so pretty, so charming! When I'm with you, all this feeling, all the warm feminine quality, all the beautiful magic that's been shut out of my life comes to me through you. It drives me crazy.... Betty, God forgive me! I can't help it—this once! It's good-by.” He took her lightly, reverently, in his arms, and brushed his lips against her forehead. Then he arose.
“Good-by, Betty!”
“It's too late to start to-day. You can't travel Chinese roads at night.”
“I'll start early in the morning.”
“I'll—if you—I'll come out here this evening. I think I can.”
“Oh—Betty!...”
“It may be a little late. Perhaps about half past eight. They'll all be busy then.... Just for a little while.”
He considered this. “It's wrong,” he said. “But what's the good of my deciding not to come. Of course I will.”
“You came clear to T'ainan.”
“I know....”
“And how about me!” she broke out. “I'm shut in a prison here. You're the only friend that's come—the only person I can talk with. Father is wonderful, but he's busy and worried, and I'm his daughter, and we can't talk much. And you and I—if you're going in the morning—we can't leave things—our very lives”—her voice wavered—“like this.”
“I'll come,” he said.
“And keep the soldiers with you.”
“I'll come.”
“I wonder if it is like a net,” said she.