Mr. and Mrs. Sên

by Louise Jordan Miln

Three years had passed.

All had gone well with Mr. and Mrs. Sên. There had been tiny rasps, of course; but they had been very tiny and had gone almost as soon as they had come. And neither the man nor his wife had had a regret. Sên had been busy, prosperous and content—keen on his “job,” proud of his wife, desperately fond of her still. And, if China had called to him now and then, he had kept it to himself. Ivy had had three years of happiness and good times, and she had enjoyed every hour of it. Her husband had proved the best of long-distance companions, and his intimate charm had even increased with their days. London society, the grave and best, as well as the gay, had given them both cordial welcome, with never a shrug or the breath of a slur. Sên King-lo had a very long purse now, and he took a still boyish delight in having his beautiful wife dip into it. There was no question now of needed new gloves or homemade blouses and jumpers for young Mrs. Sên. They met great folk on a parity. Ruben, their baby, had his father’s sunny temper and strong self-control, and though he had his mother’s dark gold-brown eyes, straight-set, was almost a blonde: an Anglo-Saxon baby, deliciously and ridiculously fat, great pals with his father and very much in love with his mother.

They had a rambling old house, discreetly modernised, delightfully furnished, a skilfully “old-world” garden about it, Kensington High Street not much more than a stone’s throw away, and a tiny rose-covered crib on the river. Their love had held and had grown, and their congeniality and mutual confidence were entire. Mrs. Sên had left almost her last annoyance on Fifth Avenue and at Tiffany’s—and only two had come to her since, both so small that they scarcely are worth mentioning, even if straws do have a reputed significance.

When the first bewitchery wore off, she discovered that she disliked her new name—and that it embarrassed her. And, believing her slightest wish her man’s sacred law, she suggested modifying and (as she thought, though she didn’t say it) “civilizing” Sên into “Senn.” She even went so far on that road as to have visiting cards engraved “Mrs. K. L. Senn” and handed one to King-lo as he sat reading in her room after tea.

“Who is she?” he asked with a smile. “A new acquaintance or an old one who has found you again?”

His wife made him a very low bow. “Behold her!” she said.

He understood on the instant—and he sensed a chasm ahead, a yawning rent in their future.

But his face did not change.

He drew his wife down on to his knee, and, with his face on hers, told her that she might not rename herself “Mrs. K. L. Senn,” nor anything else. How her wish to do it had cut him, he did not tell her, and she never suspected it even. She yielded, but she was vexed and disappointed. But she put the alias-cards in the fire and soon forgot all about it, disappointment and all. But Sên King-lo’s hurt stayed.

And when she saw her name, as he and thousands of Chinese years had given it to her, engraved on the cards she ordered the next day, she decided that Sên had a chic of its own. (The venerable name, the honorable name of Sên, chic!) She grew fond of writing her name and took special pleasure and pains in making the tent-like accent and perching it as carefully and daintily over its “e” as she did a new toque on her beautifully dressed hair. And she found that its very unusualness made it a social asset—if a cheap one—in avid London; and revalued it for this. Her handwriting was as individual and almost as pretty as she was—and many more than her husband thought so—and her name as she wrote it looked particularly well. She always signed herself “Ruby Sên.” And Sên King-lo never asked her to write it “Sên Ruby.” But he wished it.