He walked away from the city, taking his course to the woods across the river.
He knew the bar—the impossibilities—the disaster and petty, sore frets that passionate disobedience must bring. He knew and believed all this as no untraveled girl could. To call a halt to her heart Ivy had only instinct and a convention for which she had lost respect—had lost it because of what she had found in him. He had conviction, China, thousands of years. The bar that she had come to think but inconvenience and problem, a drawbridge of race that might—were the motive enough—be lowered or raised, was to him an impenetrable, unsurmountable wall—the Greater Wall of China, with never a breach or loophole in its everlasting imperial masonry.
If ever his puissant, virile manhood—the wholesomeness and sweetness of his being—the heritage his fathers had given—pulsed to manhood’s gravest sacrament, life’s perfect fulfilment, he had seen today—there in his room, the mate of his being, the core of his soul, his children’s mother.
And she was forbidden.
Did she suspect?
Could he have taught her to care? English Ruby! English!
What was he going to do about it?
Elenore Ray could have told him.
CHAPTER XXIX
Sên King-lo gave a cry; a thousand words could not have said more.