“I will, Celeste—I swear it! I swear it now! I see things differently.”
“You will never come back.” She turned slowly, and without looking back went on into the house.
“Celeste, come back! Nang Ping! Nang Ping!” he called, and she knew that he was calling her to say at least good night, as was their custom, in the pagoda. But she neither slowed her quiet step nor turned her head. The pagoda had sheltered her happiness; it should not be soiled by her despair. She went on and left him standing alone by the lotus lake.
He waited there a while, confident that she would come back to him; but presently, convinced that she would not come that night, or perhaps could not, he went stealthily away, very sorry for himself and not a little vexed with Nang Ping: the offender is easily vexed.
Low Soong came from the coign of watch, looking after him curiously, and wondering what had happened. She had seen little and heard nothing, but she sensed trouble in the air. Basil did not turn or speak to her, and when he had gone she passed slowly into the house.
There was not a sound in the garden. The darkness had come. Nothing was visible except the gay lanterns and many lamps lit on the walls and at the house-door, and in the deserted garden itself the vivid pulse of the glow-worms poised on shrubs and trees or winging brilliantly through the purple night.
CHAPTER XII
O Curse of Asia!
DO you know Hong Kong? If not, you are poor with poverty indeed. Except in China earth has no lovelier spot, and heaven itself needs none. The interior of the island is almost bleak, not beautiful, but its edge is paradise.
Other unknown wonder-places you may a little learn from books, from travelers and from pictures, but not Hong Kong. No words can in the least describe it. The attempt is an impertinence. Canvas and camera are useless too. “Hong Kong,” the gazetteers say, means “Fragrant Streams” or “Place of Sweet Lagoons.” But they are absurd. “Hong Kong” means “superbly beautiful.” If you know it, your eyes have been enriched forever. Climb the Peak, feathered with fern and bamboos, you are enwalled in beauty. Go far along the island by-ways, beauty leans toward you from every side, and beckons you on and still on. Pause on the bamboo-outlined path that bisects the great amphitheater of Happy Valley, and you may bathe your spirit and your sight in beauty, whether you look to the right, where the graves of European dead in China rest beneath their sumptuous coverlets of flowers, or to the left, where the Chinese jockeys, with their blue petticoats tucked up above their brown hips, and their bright satin jackets showing up their dancing cues, and English boys in regimental colors—gentlemen riders—canter neck to neck on the race-course, rehearsing the ponies for to-morrow’s race.