CHAPTER XXI
Abraham Kelly was as shrewd and polished as he was hard: a lawyer such as only New England can produce. He liked the Chinese Minister, and his Chinese Excellency liked and trusted Kelly.
Miss Hamilton never had met him, but she knew of him—every one did, for he was a national asset—and she knew him by sight; for the stern and upright old man was an inveterate theater-goer, and rarely missed a first night, sitting through tragedy and comedy with equal grimness, and insisting, at the fall of every curtain, that there never had been and never would be but one playhouse of merit: the Boston Museum—never an artist to compare with Annie Clarke and Baron and Warren and Mrs. Vincent, and never a play to equal “The Angel of Midnight.”
Emmeline was puzzled when his card was brought to her, but after a moment she said, “Yes—I’ll see him.”
Perhaps Uncle Silas had died and had left her most of his money—most sensible of him, if he had, for she’d make better use of it than ever Reg would. Perhaps Uncle Silas had, and Mr. Kelly had come to tell her of her legacy. She’d wear deep mourning for her uncle, of course, if he’d left her a lot—half or more. She loved white, and white was Chinese mourning she knew. For, if Miss Hamilton knew less than nothing of China, it was not because she had not read feverishly a large number of books telling of that country and its people.
But surely her father or mother would have telegraphed, if old Uncle Silas was dead. No—she was afraid it couldn’t be that. Well, she’d said he could come up—and she might as well see him, no matter what it was.
She went to the window and arranged herself there in an Oriental languorous attitude.
She thought that the light from the window and the background of purple, dragon-embroidered curtains, with a candle-lantern of jangling glass beads hanging between them, suited her well.
And Emmeline was looking her best today. Excitement was tinging her thin face with almost a girlish and pretty rose, and her pale eyes were sparkling. She was hoping so much from the paragraph in the paper of which several copies—blue penciled—lay about the room conspicuously. The paragraph was in just as she’d wished. And out of one copy of the paper she’d cut it, and she was wearing it now in the jade locket over her heart! She was hoping everything from Sên King-lo’s chivalry! The Chinese were so chivalrous—all the best authorities said so, and a man who had spent a week in Shanghai had told her once that it was perfectly true, and even a Presbyterian missionary friend of her father’s to whom she had repeated it had made no reply.
At the sound of hoofs she turned her face to the window, to see, who was riding by; she didn’t ride herself, she thought it too mannish, and she didn’t enjoy it—but she always liked to watch men who rode. And though she never yet had seen him pass her window, there was always a chance that it might be. . . .
It was. And a bitter look rushed into her eyes. For Sên King-lo was speaking to Ivy Gilbert, and Ivy was laughing back at him—neither paying any undue attention to the horses they rode.
Emmeline watched them out of sight—neither looked up at her window—and she turned back with a paler face as Kelly came into the room. He bowed, and then he coughed. The clouds of smoke from the many clustering joss-sticks had smote him, throat and nose.
Emmeline motioned to him languorously. “Pray be seated, Mr. Kelly.”
The lawyer threw a searching glance across the remarkable room and bowed his thanks. The inlaid stool did not attract him, and there was nothing else to sit on—if it was intended for seating purposes. That the cushions on the floor were so intended did not cross his mind—a shrewd and versatile mind, but adamantly New-Englandish.
“I shall detain you but a moment, Madam,” he said, still standing. “My client, Mr. Sên King-lo——”
“Oh, but you must sit down.” Emmeline rushed at him, and caught his arm in almost caressing fingers.
Abraham Kelly bowed and backed and extracted his broadcloth dexterously.
“Mr. Sên King-lo has seen with great distress and grave indignation the paragraph which you, I observe, also have seen.” He pointed a lean fore-finger at the blue-marked sheet on the nearest cocktail table. “He has instructed me to express to you his deepest concern that you, a lady whom he scarcely knows, should have been libeled so scurrilously in the intolerable journalistic falsehood.” Emmeline sighed sentimentally. “The base and unfounded insinuation will be withdrawn, contradicted and apologized for in tomorrow’s issue. I already have seen the editor and the proprietor and myself dictated the contradiction and the apology. But my client wishes me to express to you his indignation and regret. If we can find the original culprit, I am instructed to push the case to the severest limit our laws provide, unless—unless you, Madam, would prefer, for obvious reasons, that the matter be dropped and we all rest satisfied with the withdrawal and apology. It is for you to decide.”
“I should like to see Mr. Sên himself about it first,” Emmeline said sentimentally.
“That I fear will be impossible now,” the lawyer replied regretfully. “Having put the matter in my hands, my client cannot speak on the matter except through me. We lawyers are sticklers, you know, and the Chinese are punctilious—and none more so than Mr. Sên King-lo.”
“Nonsense!” Emmeline snapped. “I insist upon seeing Mr. Sên about it.”
“Impossible,” the lawyer told her tersely.
“I shall write to him,” Miss Hamilton insisted sulkily. “Mr. Sên himself and I will decide what we are going to do about it. I had a right to be consulted before you went to the paper—not after. It’s as much my affair as Mr. Sên’s. And I don’t propose to be left out of it. I shall telephone the newspaper at once.”
Kelly bowed.
“And I shall write to King-lo,” she repeated hysterically.
“And he will hand your note to me to answer,” the lawyer told her smoothly.
“Show a woman’s letter—her personal letter—to you! He couldn’t!”
“Pardon me; he would have to. And I have seen many women’s personal letters.” He smiled a little.
“I shall mark it ‘Private,’ ” the girl almost hissed.
The lawyer bowed. But hard as he was—all buckram and broadcloth and relentless procedure—he was sorry for the unstrung pallid creature facing him. He had diagnosed her as Dr. Ray had—as quickly and convincedly. Lawyers see as much, perhaps, of that complex as physicians do—even in New England.
“You will let me know—when you have considered it—your decision as to whether we are to ferret out, as we undoubtedly can, the originator of the false and abominable falsehood, or to let that part of it drop. Our only wish is to spare you further annoyance.”
“I’ll let Mr. Sên know,” Miss Hamilton answered haughtily. “You are not my lawyer. I’ll choose my own lawyer, if I want one.”
Kelly bowed.
“I insist—” she began hotly; but Abraham Kelly had bowed himself out.
Emmeline stood for several moments where he’d left her, limp with rage, her thin breast heaving painfully, her clenched hands raised above her head.
As his footsteps died away, she threw herself face downwards on her cushions, and broke into hard, tearless sobs, her nervous fingers picking convulsively at the pillows’ silks and tinsels.
Sên King-lo’s chivalry had failed her. And he was riding with Ivy Gilbert!
But she scorned her defeat. She was not through yet, and she’d throw her dice again.