And when the songs of the birds in the park had ceased; when only the quarrelling of the white-headed crows was heard; when the hum from the city had died away; when silence with dusk had closed around them the hands of the wife crept lightly around the Breton’s neck. Her lips parted, her eyes, tearful, yet happy, looked up into his face.
Dusk deepened.
Heavily the Breton lifted his hands, resting them gently but firmly upon her arms.
A joyous flush spread over her face and neck; her lips quivered as if to smile or burst into joyful tears; she laid her cheek lightly on his bosom. The Breton’s fingers closed around her wrists; trembling, with difficulty he took them from his shoulders.
Gently he put her away from him and as he crossed the room he heard a little moan, also the crinkling fall of silk.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NIGHT
The Breton went calmly out of the Hall of Guests and came unconcernedly down the Lion Steps into the Park as though without thought or in profound meditation. His head was thrown slightly back and his hands hung loosely by his side. Softly he went into the dusk as though watching the crows and herons still unsettled in the darkened domes of the great trees.
Dusk was deepening into night as he passed out the gateway and the streets were filled with their night streams of hurrying men. The stores had closed, street stalls were leaving. The seal cutter that sat near the gate and always welcomed him, had departed, as had his neighbour, the money-changer, who had gone before dusk with his strings of cash. A short way up the street a fussing cook stopped his grumbling to offer him a cake; a fortune teller peered momentarily into his face, then jumped dramatically to one side. Itinerant barbers, apothecaries, shoemakers, dentists, storytellers, geomancers, astrologers and book-sellers joked and reviled as he passed them in their packing-up and counting of the profits of the day. Beggars innumerable and hucksters with trays slung over their shoulders, with rattles and wailing whistles, jostled against him. Unresistingly, unconscious of these men and their noises, he was carried along in this dusk-stream through the tortuous channels of Yingching.
Sometimes with jest they brushed roughly against him, peered up into his face, only to draw hastily away with a look of silent fear. Sometimes a swiftly borne mandarin’s chair came by him and the attendants would thrust him brutally against the walls or into a corner. A line of singing bonzes, modulating their tones by the sound of wooden cymbals and mingling their melancholy chant with the evening noises carried him along with them.
In and through the twisting streets the monks took him until they vanished, and another crowd shoved him along through the night. Only here and there were lights in front of tea-houses, from which came jests and songs and the laughter tinkling of wine cups. In front of one of these several sedans had stopped and blocked the way. The crowd growled and cursed and surging forward, was forcing the Breton in front of them, when from one of the chairs a dainty singing-girl stepped out. This dusk crowd, at the sight of her, grew licentious in a moment and there rose a tumult of comments. The girl wavered, almost terror-stricken, at this mob of men. She peered around for a place to flee, but they were all around her and the way to the tea-house was closed. The wit of the crowd grew more violent when the girl, looking up, saw the Breton standing silently beside her. For a moment she hesitated, then lifted up her arms to him like a child seeking protection and rested them on his bosom. He looked down at her unconcernedly, while the crowd jeered as only a Chinese crowd can do and poured upon him and the little singing-girl clinging for protection their storm of lascivious wit.