CHAPTER XII
It was not late the next morning when Mr. Sên’s orchids came—to Lady Snow, of course. He sent nothing to Miss Gilbert—but she could scarcely expect her confession-book back so soon. One wrote in confession-books at one’s leisure, and when in the mood. That was understood.
“I wonder if he’ll pay his dinner-call today?” Emma said to her husband, when at lunch he’d remarked on the splendid blooms on the table, and she’d mentioned who had sent them.
“I don’t suppose he’s going to live here,” Ivy Gilbert remarked rather unnecessarily.
“I don’t suppose he is,” Lady Snow said cheerfully, “but he’s sure to call promptly—Charlie said so.”
“I?” the knight she’d quoted demanded.
“You said the Chinese were punctiliously polite. It amounts to the same thing.”
“Bless my soul!” Sir Charles muttered.
“I think I’ll go out calling tomorrow instead of today. I’d be vexed to miss him.”
“Do you like Mr. Sên?” Ivy asked indifferently.
“I don’t dislike him. I thought he was good fun. Do you, Ivy?”
“Which?”
“Both.”
“He is not my idea of fun.”
“Nor mine,” Sir Charles added.
“But he doesn’t bore me—if that’s what you mean,” the girl owned lazily. “As for liking him—I don’t know him. I’ve met him three or four times. What does that amount to? And, you know, my likes are few. They don’t stretch to China.”
“Nor your knowledge,” her cousin Charles reminded her.
Ivy nodded contentedly. She was not interested in China or in the Chinese; and she was not going to pretend that she was, even to please dear old Charlie. She’d be polite—for him—but surely that was enough. “Wouldn’t you better put your orchids in the drawing-room, Em?” she said, with a laugh.
“I intend to,” Lady Snow retorted. “There is a big vase full there already. I brought these in here for Charlie to enjoy.”
“Thank you, my dear.” He might have added—but did not—that he did not care for orchids, except when they were growing.
“But I shall only have them in here at meals.”
“The peripatetic orchids,” Ivy said gaily. “Well, you and the orchids will have to entertain Mr. Sên all alone, Emma, if he comes. I’m off to Miss Julia’s.”
“I rather think I’ll have plenty of visitors today—though it isn’t my day,” Lady Snow returned. “It is in the Post, and it’s sure to be copied in the Evening Star, that Mr. Sên King-lo dined here last night.”
“Great Scott!” was her husband’s comment.
Ivy giggled.
“Yes,” Emma told her, “I did. Justine knows a reporter. I never have any difficulty getting my nice bits in.”
“I wouldn’t do that, dear,” Snow said uncomfortably.
“Of course you wouldn’t. You’re a man. I shall. I like them in. Marion Lawson will be green. He never dined there en famille.”
“You didn’t put that in!” her cousin cried. And Sir Charles looked distinctly disturbed.
“No,” Lady Snow owned. “But I shall tell Marion.”
“I’m sure you will,” Ivy laughed, and the man retired philosophically to his ice-pudding.
“You’d have looked nice if he hadn’t turned up after all,” the girl remarked.
“Well—” the other confessed, “I almost was in a wee panic. But I felt pretty safe. He’d accepted, and Charlie says their word is as good as another man’s bond.”
This time her husband did not expostulate or contradict.
They were dining out that evening, and Ivy hurried back in time to dress.
“Well,” she asked, as they drove away towards Fifteen-and-one-half Street, “did Mr. Sên call, Emma?”
“No,” Lady Snow admitted, “he didn’t. But half the girls in Washington did. Emmeline Hamilton called, of course. She came early and stayed late. I thought she’d never go. She stole an orchid. And when she saw that I’d seen her sneak it into her vanity bag, she simpered and sighed—like this——”
Ivy giggled.
Sir Charles told her, “You giggle just like a Chinese girl, Ivy.”
She frowned with vexation. It was too much! Her own cousin!
“Oh—” he had seen the frown—it was still light—“you needn’t frown. Chinese girls have the prettiest giggles imaginable—not a scrap like our women giggle—for all the world like the tinkle of ivory bells. So is yours. I say, giggle again. Can you?”
Ivy gave him a dagger look.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I’m blowed if you don’t look a bit Chinese too sometimes. Your eyes—or something. And you do tonight in that gown, and with those stick-pin things in your hair.”
The girl bit her lip sharply. She was wearing her new red dress again—she never had many gowns to choose from—and the garnet rings dangled in her hair. Charlie had seen what the Chinese man had claimed to see. It was intolerable!
When Ivy Gilbert followed Lady Snow into the drawing-room the girl’s eyes were still stormy.
That was on Tuesday.
Sên King-lo called on Lady Snow the next afternoon. She was out, and her cousin was with her. Mr. Sên left three cards.
On Thursday he came duly to breakfast—five minutes before the hour.
To his surprise, and then amusement, and not a little to Ivy’s dismay, Sên King-lo and Miss Gilbert had breakfast alone.
The children, who as a rule shared and excited that meal with their parents, were closely interned in their schoolroom quarters, because of unattractive colds that might, their mother thought, develop into whooping-cough. A cable from Downing Street had sent Sir Charles in hot haste and breakfastless to the British Embassy an hour ago. His wife had danced a slight but painful sprain into her left ankle the night before, and was obliged to breakfast in bed.
Miss Gilbert explained and apologized, and led the way to the breakfast-room.
Sên had the tact not to offer to defer his breakfast visit. It would have been an enormity, of course, but for some puzzle of a reason Ivy had half expected it. And it had crossed Lady Snow’s mind that he might—but she had not said so.
Miss Gilbert was annoyed, and still more annoyed that she was. But her annoyance wore off quickly. Sên King-lo saw to that as deftly as unobtrusively. He greatly regretted missing Sir Charles. But he accepted the small situation quite as the very small thing it was, and set himself to dispel the displeasure that he clearly saw, though Miss Gilbert felt sure that she hid it completely.
He thought that this girl with the intangible but haunting something of China about her, disliked him. He did not resent it in the least. He himself disliked a good many acquaintances. He was sorry for her that the three small family accidents had driven her into a tête-à-tête meal that he saw jarred. It didn’t enchant him. He preferred looking at Miss Gilbert to talking to her. But he scarcely could gaze at her in silence from melon to preserved ginger—so he addressed himself to chat away her ill-ease and displeasure. Why she had elected to ride with him at all still puzzled him. He was sorry she had, and vexed with himself that he had troubled her with the invitation. He’d make it up to her as well as he could. She should enjoy that ride if he could contrive it.
Why she so minded breakfasting alone with Sên King-lo was a question the girl herself could have answered but lamely. She often had lunched alone with a man friend, and as often had given tea in Emma’s absence to a man she knew even more slightly than she did Mr. Sên. If she could ride with this man, it was no great odds to break her cousin’s bread with him. Uncle Lysander’s smoldering disapproval at her elbow might have disconcerted her a little perhaps—for, while it angered her, she must have somewhat sympathized with it. It is not pleasant, unless one is very self-sure indeed, to feel that the servant who offers you cutlets and omelette considers you bad form. But the Snow servants—except Justine—were all English, and it was evident that neither Dawson nor William saw any indignity in bending over Mr. Sên’s chair. She did not know why she disliked this breakfast so—but she did. Unreasonable, perhaps. But the fact stood.
For all his intelligence Sên King-lo was at fault in his explanation of the displeasure he recognized. It did not occur to him that this English girl did not object to breakfasting alone with him, but with a Chinese. He put it all down to a personal dislike of him personally. It did not vex him in the least. Had he believed that she thought him beneath her—which he did not—it would not have vexed him. Had he realized that it was the Chinese race that she looked down upon and considered socially unfit, it would have vexed him as little. Sên King-lo, the sash-wearer, was even more sure, far more sure, of his race than he was of himself. His estimate of self was humble. His estimate of China was very proud. He was proud and joyous to be Chinese.
They breakfasted briefly, but before he moved back her chair, Ivy had confessed to herself that the West had done this stranger within its far gates well—for, if Mr. Sên never had seen a Chinese girl, he exquisitely knew how to treat an English girl, and how to care for her tiniest comforts. And she complimented Western sojourn and example for what centuries of Chinese breeding had given—as nothing else can.
They went to their waiting horses, outwardly cordial, but inwardly each was a little perturbed. Ivy very much doubted if he could ride—what she called ride. He dressed the part without fault, which she always had thought that only a British man could do—but, after all, it was much a matter of tailor and boot-maker; no doubt Mr. Sên had a London tailor. Sên wondered how well his companion could ride. He loved to go. Never mind—he reproached himself—this was her ride, and, if she couldn’t ride, they’d walk. And she should enjoy herself—this girl with his mother’s name—who was starting off, he knew, so reluctantly. Why, he wondered again, was she going at all?
She could mount—that was his first discovery. She rose a feather-weight from his hand. Her discovery was that her unusual escort could mount her at all. That he did it expertly was a pleasant surprise. And she realized that his slender hand had been rock-firm under her foot. It was a good beginning at least. In the pleasure of even that small relief she smiled down at him graciously as he straightened her habit.
“Why, Mr. Sên,” she laughed, “you must have mounted many girls. I thought from what you said the other night that you scarcely had ridden with one.”
He laughed back at her, lingering a moment at her bridle. “I never have ridden with one, Miss Gilbert—never with any girl. But I have mounted a great number of ladies—one any number of times—no less a personage than a duchess—the Duchess of Westershire. So, you see, I’ve had distinguished practice.”
“Never!” the English girl cried. “The Duchess of Westershire must weigh fourteen stone, if she weighs an ounce.”
“Nearer forty, I’d wager.”
“You needn’t tell me she can ride.”
“She can mount,” Sên insisted.
“Didn’t she crack your hand in two?”
“Went up like down.”
“Did she ride to hounds?”
“She rode towards them,” Sên stated guardedly.
Ivy chuckled. And Sên King-lo swung up into his saddle.
It was a better beginning than Miss Gilbert realized. Make a Chinese laugh, or help him to laugh, and his world is yours—at least for the moment.
They eyed each other’s horsemanship guilefully. There was nothing for either to cavil at yet. The girl’s seat was perfect. Sên’s was no less.
Still he was cautious. The groom behind heard them laugh more than once—but it was she who suggested, as they turned into Dupont Circle, “A little faster?”
Still Sên King-lo set but a moderately quickened pace. They still were keeping it so when they met Miss Smith face to face. But he had no doubt now that this girl could ride, and her English eyes, almost as quick to horsemanship as his were to most things, knew that Sên King-lo rode as well as a Derby jockey.
And, if he rode today to please a girl who—he thought—disliked him, Sên King-lo rode to win.
They rode far, and after the banks of Rock Creek they pushed on into the country, and rode faster and faster.
“How joyous!” she called to him once, in a camaraderie that knew no race distinctions.
“Glorious, isn’t it!” Sên answered.
“You ride better than Charles does even,” she told him blithely; “and you ride our English fashion. You rise in your saddle.”
“I learned to ride in England when I was a boy at school,” he explained. “But I usually ride American fashion when I jog off by myself.”
“Why?” she asked quickly.
“I enjoy it more.”
“Oh,” the girl said, a little disdainfully.
“You ought to try it,” he ventured. “Don’t you think it prettier?”
But the English girl would not own that. “Our way is the kinder,” she insisted.
“To the nags? Yes,” Sên agreed, “it certainly seems so. But your cavalrymen did not rise in their stirrups until recently. You should try it—sometimes.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t like learning new ways, Mr. Sên.”
“Or languages?”
“You don’t call Chinese a new language, do you?”
“It would be to you,” he retorted. “By the way, there are a great many distinct Chinese languages, nearly sixty. I wonder which you’d admire—least.”
“Horrors!” the girl cried. But she laughed softly—because he had said “least” when she’d thought he was going to say “most.”
And he laughed back at her, because the speed they’d gone was tingling in his blood.
“Thank you, Mr. Sên,” she said, as they stood waiting for Dawson or William to open the door. “I have so enjoyed it.”
“Truly?” He asked it gravely.
“I’ve loved it,” she told him.
“I wonder then,” Dawson heard him say, “if you’ll let me take you again some day?”
“I’d love it,” she answered.
The Chinese man gave her a grateful look. It was sincere. He was grateful that a girl who disliked him, had had—as he knew she had—a good time. And he was gratified that he had done what he had tried to do. Sên King-lo was very human.
That afternoon he sent Lady Snow a wealth of flowers—a note of condolence for her accident, all fragrant with their perfume.
And this time Ivy too had her tribute, tea-roses, and on the card he sent with them Sên King-lo had written a word: “Thanks.”
Again Miss Gilbert took her blossoms to her own room. There were flowers enough in the drawing- and sitting-rooms, and Emma’s room looked like a flower-show. Ivy put her roses in water—one bud she tucked in her gown. She was fond of tea-roses.