“Desperately hard,” Sên answered, gravely. Snow had drawn blood at last.
“It will be worse for them than for her or for you,” he urged.
“It would be, in China,” Sên agreed sadly.
“Damnable!”
“Our children shall be English.”
“Half-English,” the other reminded him, “Eurasians!”
Sên King-lo flushed a little. His Chinese soul winced at that word. Snow had meant that it should. But he was sorry to thrust so at Sên King-lo, here in the room—Snow’s own room—where they had smoked so many “peace-pipes” and held such intimate and cordial conference.
Charles Snow saw that the other’s face was troubled now, but he saw no receding.
After a moment he rose and unlocked a drawer in a tall cabinet—the only Chinese thing in the room—and came back with a small oval thing in his hand. “No one but I ever has looked at it,” he said with one hand on Sên King-lo’s shoulder, “since the day it was given to me.” And he laid the miniature down at Sên’s hand.
Sên King-lo saw the face of a very beautiful Chinese girl painted on the oval of ivory, and painful color crimsoned his face.