CHAPTER XIX
An ominous silence reigned in the schoolroom, and Ivy—just home from a fashionable wedding at St. Aloysius—looked cautiously in, to see what mischief the children were doing.
Sên King-lo sat on the floor, Blanche standing behind him, her chubby arms pinion-tight about his neck, her small fat hands clutched on his face. Dick sprawled at his knees, one of Dick’s feet beating an ecstatic tattoo on the man’s suffering trousers, not to mention the possible pain to Sên’s leg. All three were beaming with happiness. An array of toys, such as Ivy never had seen, strewed the floor, and Sên King-lo was making a procession of them as well as he could, pinioned and manacled by the excited youngsters: grotesque Chinese toys—animals that must have startled Darwin and Hudson—and a gorgeous sprinkling of dolls. The little clay animals bore a remarkable family resemblance, all were bright orange, handsomely embellished with generous circles of black, and the dragon looked as much like a tiger as it did like a dragon, the tiger as much like a dragon as it did like a tiger, the peacock—an orange and jet-black peacock—the cormorant and the duck looked triplets, the lion and ape and horse were fulsomely flattering imitations of each other. There were several imitation dwarf-trees, an ivory pagoda, a coolie-manned junk, a mandarin under his best umbrella, a toy-theater, all its actors complete, a peasant’s mat hut, a buffalo working a water-wheel, a party of pig-tailed merchants playing dice, and drinking samshu, a lady with very small feet and a very large simper, quite a créche of babies—one on its amah’s back—a monk and a be-fanned and parasoled warrior, a litter of picture-books, and a number of other playthings to which the astonished governess could fit no names.
The three on the floor looked up as Miss Gilbert stood in the door, and the two children frowned at the interruption. Sên rose with a smile, Blanche pendant on his back, strangling his neck, Dick clutched on one arm, a gigantic top in Sên’s left hand. He held out his other hand to Miss Gilbert.
But she drew back a little. “Not with that menagerie at close quarters,” she laughed. “I know what those two do to best dresses. Get down, children, get down at once. Mr. Sên is not a pony.”
But the children stayed where they were, clinging to Sên King-lo but the tighter.
“Me love ’im, and ’im love me,” Blanche announced.
“See what topping things he’s brought us—from Pekin!” Dick bade his cousin.
Ivy raised her eyebrows at Sên King-lo. “You made a quick journey to Pekin and back, Mr. Sên,” she said.
“Yes, didn’t I? A record journey. I promised these imps some real Chinese toys—weeks ago—and I wired a friend to send them to me. They came this morning. Do come and play with us. We are having a splendid time.”
“Do you really enjoy it?” the girl asked incredulously.
“I love it,” Sên told her.
Ivy shook her head sadly. “I don’t understand you.” And her eyes were cold and unfriendly, Sên thought. But he tried once more. “Won’t you?” he asked with an effort. The zest had gone out of his voice, and its tone was flat and perfunctory.
“Sit on the floor, and pretend I’m three? No, thank you. Whatever are those?” she demanded—disapprovingly, Sên thought.
“Chinese kites,” he told her dully.
Almost a dozen were stacked in one corner—balloon-shaped bodies with bat-shaped wings.
“Practising for next Easter?” she queried a little superciliously. “Where are your eggs?”
“Oh—we’ll get the eggs; dozens and dozens of eggs,” Sên assured her.
Blanche gave a gurgle of delight and assaulted Sên’s ear with a damp rosebud kiss. Ivy saw him wince.
“It’s your own fault,” she told him. “Well, I’m off.”
“Tum back to tea,” Blanche said generously.
“Yes, cousin Ive—you must,” Dick added. “Mr. Sên is having his with us.”
“You’ll have to excuse me, Dick,” Ivy refused. “Mr. Sên will pour beautifully, I’m sure.”
“Dere’s doin’ to be muffens,” Blanche announced proudly.
But Ivy stood firm. “Not even for crumpets! Ba. You are a hero, Mr. Sên.” And she left them.
Sên bowed gravely and returned to the floor, and as she crossed the hall she heard the great top spin.
The children squealed with delight, but Sên King-lo smothered a sigh.
How desirable she’d looked there in the doorway—though even in his mind he did not consciously word it like that—the girl in her silvery steel-trimmed gown, violets at her breast, and in the picture hat that shaded her brunette face and was tied with violet ribbons under her dimpled, mutinous chin. He had never desired her more—and never had he desired her less—though it never yet had occurred to him that he, intensely Chinese, desired her at all: the girl who had no affection for children, no share in their fresh little pleasures, no tenderness for the baby-lives that were of her own near kindred.
And Emma Snow, who noticed most things, and chattered and laughed over many, noticed—and said nothing about it—that for many days Sên King-lo sent no lilies-of-the-valley to Ivy.