“Always that. But not to take you with me. I must not.”
Ruby studied the yellow flowers on the blue eiderdown a moment and then turned her eyes again to her husband’s and searched his face, laying her hand, and keeping it there, on his hand that lay on the lace below her throat. She said, “Are you ashamed to take me to China, Lo? Ashamed to have me there with you?”
Sudden color flooded the face of the Chinese man; but he answered her truthfully and fairly, as he always had and always would do.
In every marriage there must be something of sacrifice—and always it must be so, because the bonds that fetter human souls one from the other are eternal set—always have been and always must be—till we cross the River; and it is in the higher wedlock, the happiest union, most nearly perfected, that that sacramental sacrifice is the greatest and costliest. In the sacrifices to come it might be laid upon him to keep from her unsaid some of the thoughts that welled to his heart and vexed his mind—indeed already he had done so once or twice, eagerly willing to bear tenfold any trouble alone rather than to share it with her. But he never had lied to his wife in small things or great, and it did not occur to him to do it now in this hour of their intimate mutual testing. And though he would instantly, ungrudgingly, have sacrificed to her his life and things far dearer than life, he could not sacrifice even to her his word—and truth was a very part of his loyalty. There were white-skinned women in London—a few—who pitied Mrs. Sên, even while they sought her and made much of her—pitied her because she was the wife of an Eastern—but there were sadly few who might not have envied her had they known the quality of her husband’s loyalty—exquisite and absolute.
“Ashamed!” he repeated. “Never that! Need you ask?”
“What is it then?”
“Afraid. Afraid for you, dearest.”
“Of what?” She would not let him off.
And he went on simply and bravely and left no blank in this confession. “Afraid of slights and slurs. They might not come, but they might.”
“Need we care?” she demanded, pressing a little the fingers under hers. “ ‘Where MacGregor sits is the head of the table.’ ”