He lay upon his back, his face lifted to the paneled and painted ceiling.
Almost as Florence Gregory’s footsteps died from his house, a great change swept his face. The contortions of poisoned death had left it set and agonized. That passed away. He was smiling when they found him, as even Nang Ping had never seen him smile. Only one had ever seen that look upon his face. And she had only seen it once—in quite the fullness of its beauty, the majesty of its declaration, all its exquisite tenderness. A living man smiles so but once. Some men never smile so—they have frittered its possibility away—some of them, and some are small men, and it is not for them. It is a hall-mark.
It is a hall-mark, and now and again death stamps it caressingly and regally upon some dead man’s face; and always he is a man who has put up a fine good fight, and always it tells that there is marriage in Heaven.
Wu Lu had seen that smile—once—in Sze-chuan; and now, in that near garden-place where she had waited for him all these years, he took her in his arms and held her close; and she gave all herself to him again. And he looked down and smiled at her, his bride.
Wu Li Chang lay dead on the K’o-tang floor, and his face was very beautiful.
CHAPTER XLI
“Just With Us”
BETWEEN breakfast and tiffin Florence Gregory sent for Basil, and he went to her heavily. His feet were lead, his heart, his head; and his hands grew very cold.
The interview was inevitable. They each knew that.
It would be difficult to say which dreaded it the more, or which suffered more during it: probably the mother—both; for she was guiltless and made of the finer clay.