III.
All that night, Mien-yaun's heart was troubled. The tranquillizing finger of Sleep never touched his eyelids. At earliest dawn he arose, and devoted some hours to the consideration of his costume. Never before had he murmured at his wardrobe; now everything seemed unworthy of the magnitude of the occasion. Finally, after many doubts and inward struggles, and much bewilderment and desperation, the thing was done. He issued forth in a blaze of splendor, preceded by two servants bearing rare and costly presents. His raiment was a masterpiece of artistic effect. He wore furs from Russia, and cotton from Bombay; his breast sparkled with various orders of nobility; his slippers glistened with gems; his hat was surmounted with the waving feather of the peacock. Turning neither to the right nor to the left, he made his way to the residence of Tching-whang. At the portal he paused, and sent in before him his card,—a sheet of bright red paper,—with a list of the presents he designed to offer the family whose acquaintance he desired to cultivate.
As he had expected, his reception was most cordial. Though his person was unknown, the magic of his name was not unfelt, even in the regions of the Kung. A prince of the peacock's feather was no common visitor to the home of a plebeian manufacturer; and when that prince was found to be in addition the leader of the fashions and the idol of the aristocracy, the marvel assumed a miraculous character. The guest was ushered in with many low obeisances. How the too gay Ching-ki-pin regretted those unlucky telegraphic kisses! What would he think of her? She, too, had passed a most unquiet night, but had been able to relieve her feelings to some extent at the sewing-circle, which had met at her home, and at which she poured into the eager ears of her young companions rapturous accounts of the beauty, elegance, dignity, and tenderness of the enchanting stranger, and displayed before their dazzled eyes the lustrous jewel he had presented to her. Having excited a great deal of envy and jealousy, she was able to rest more in peace than would otherwise have been possible. But she had never dreamed of the real rank of her admirer. It came upon her like a lightning-flash, and almost reduced her to a condition of temporary distraction. As for the mother-in-law, she would infallibly have gone off into hysterics, but for the pain in her back, which the barbers—who are also the physicians in China—had not been able to allay. But the sight of a peacock's feather under her roof was better than balm to her tortured spine. Tching-whang lost his presence of mind altogether, and violated the common decencies of life by receiving his visitor with his hat off, and taking the proffered presents with one hand,—the other being occupied in pulling his ear, to assure himself he was not dreaming.
Mien-yaun spoke. His voice fell like soft music on the ears of his hosts, and went straight to the innermost core of Ching-ki-pin's heart. He had come, he said, to give utterance to his deep grief at the mishap of yesterday, the recollection of which had harrowed his soul. The thought of that venerable blistered back had taken away his repose, and seriously interfered with his appetite. At the same time he could not forget his own great loss, occasioned by the unlucky spilling of the precious cup. He was sure, that Madam, in the kindness of her heart, would overlook his fault, and consent to bestow on him another cheering, but not inebriating draught.
The Antique was overcome by so much condescension. She could not say a word. Tching-whang, too, remained paralyzed. But the beauteous Ching-ki-pin, who had recovered her composure, answered with the sweetest air imaginable, and succeeded in winding another amorous chain around the already sufficiently-enslaved heart of her lover.
Presently the ice of constraint was broken, and the Antique, having once put her foot in it, plunged off into conversation with remarkable vigor. She entertained Mien-yaun with a detailed account of her family trials, so interminable, that, with all his politeness, the young noble could not avoid gaping desperately. Tching-whang, observing his visitor's strait, interposed.
"What the women have lost in their feet, they have added to their tongues," said he, quoting a Chinese proverb of great popularity.
As the Antique persisted, her husband gently reminded her that excessive talkativeness is an allowed ground for divorce in China, and, by suggesting the idea that she might possibly become the dismembered fragment of a shattered union, at length succeeded in shaming her into silence.
This Tching-whang was a fine old fellow. He was not a bit fashionable, and Mien-yaun liked him the better for it. He had been educated by the bamboo, and not by masters in the arts of courtesy. But he was a shrewd, cunning, jolly old Chinaman, and was evidently perfectly familiar with the elementary principles according to Kei-ying. After an animated discussion of some ten minutes, it would have been difficult to determine which of the two gentlemen was most deeply imbued with a sense of the righteousness of the elementary principles.
After a proper time had elapsed, Mien-yaun was permitted the luxury of a private chat with his charmer. What sighs, what smiles, what pleasing tremors, what soft murmurings, what pressings of the hand and throbbings of the heart were there! The Antique, who watched the course of proceedings through a contiguous keyhole, subsequently declared that she had never in all her life witnessed so affecting a spectacle, and she was prevented from giving way to her excessive agitation only by the thought that the interruption might seriously endanger her daughter-in-law's prospects. The lovers, unconscious of scrutiny, made great progress. Some doubt appeared at one time to exist as to which had first experienced the budding passion which had now blossomed so profusely; but in due time it was settled that both had suffered love at precisely the same moment, and that the first gleam of the other's eye had kindled the flame in the bosom of each.
Towards evening, the Antique came in with a cup of tea worthy to excite a poet's inspiration,—and poets in China have sung the delights of tea, and written odes to teacups, too, before now. Mien-yaun sipped it with an air of high-breeding that neither Ching-ki-pin nor her respectable mother-in-law had ever seen before. Soon after, the enamored couple parted, with many fond protestations of faith, avowed and betrothed lovers.
Mien-yaun went home in an amatory ecstasy, and immediately exploded four bunches of crackers and blazed a Bengal light, as a slight token of his infinite happiness.