Mr. and Mrs. Sên

by Louise Jordan Miln

He always was glad to get back to the bungalow on the Peak which he had taken and furnished for Ruby through a cablegram sent from Vancouver. Sên King-lo had not cared to take his English wife to a Hongkong hotel.

They had been in Hongkong several months now, during which time he had been away more than once on the bank’s business, once with Ruby, twice without her. He did not intend to take her with him again when he went on a business journey. There had been a hint of unpleasantness for them—not between them—more than once on that one journey, hints that had reached him more clearly than they had her. He understood the language and the people; she did not.

She had amused herself comfortably enough on his two brief absences, and he would have been glad to hope that he might persuade her to remain in Hongkong when he went to Ho-nan to see his grandmother at his old home. Ruby had certain social assets here that could not be ignored or too ruthlessly discounted. The Governor was a lifelong friend of Sir Charles Snow’s; his wife a distant relative of Lady Snow’s; and in London Ruby and he had dined with them and they with the Sêns. It had not been possible for Mr. and Mrs. Sên to be excluded from Government House. And that gave her a chance of amusement which might, he thought, be a little more cordial if he himself were away. But Sên knew so well that his wife would not be persuaded to remain behind when he went to Ho-nan that, much as he wished it, he scarcely urged it. What was the use?

Sên King-lo began to see, faint but growing clearer, the same writing on the wall that Sir Charles had seen, and been aghast but not surprised to see, at Kensington.

Eagerly determined that this holiday and homecoming of his should be all Lo’s, filled to the brim with all that would make it happiest for him and pleasant to remember, Mrs. Sên cared very little how many Europeans called on her or how many did not; but she was keenly anxious to know and “make friends” with Chinese women, that she and Lo might come and go among his Chinese friends, seeing them in their homes and in the Sên home. Sên had hoped to gratify her in this, believing that it would be easy enough under the change in woman’s position in China. To an extent he had, but it hadn’t worked.

Chinese ladies had called on Mrs. Sên—a few; two had invited her to lunch; and one, more emancipated perhaps, or perhaps more good-natured, or it even might have been under a husband’s control, had gone so far as to bring her daughters with her the second time she called. She had dined once at the Sêns’ bungalow and had once invited them both to dine with her husband and herself—on which occasion neither of her daughters had been present.

But all this visiting had been as barren to Ivy as Sên realized it to be perfunctory, if not, as he suspected, actually enforced. Ivy knew no Chinese. Only one of the Chinese ladies who had called upon her knew a few words of English. Great international issues may be reconciled and solved via interpreters, but feminine intercourse cannot be. The day Mrs. Sên lunched with Mrs. Eng-Hung, the English lady was provided with English cutlery; but its newness was assertive—almost a protest—and the hostess ate with chopsticks. When Mrs. Sên offered to shake hands with her Chinese women visitors, the palms that met her outstretched hand were instant and courteous but limp and irresponsive. And the husband of every Chinese woman that called even once either was under some large business obligation to Sên King-lo, or aimed to be. Several Chinese ladies whom, through their husbands, Sên had asked to call upon his wife, did not do so. Sên had little doubt that Mrs. Ma T’en-k’ai had made her sudden journey to their country home rather than do so; and Ma T’en-k’ai was deeply in debt to Sên for financial advancement. Yen F’eng-hui, who owed more to Sên King-lo’s influence than any other man in Hongkong did, frankly told King-lo that he would not permit Mrs. Yen to know an Englishwoman who had married a Chinese. He did not blame Mrs. Sên for being English, that would be absurd, since we all had be to born where the gods decree. There were English ladies in Hongkong whom he would not forbid his wife to meet, though he had no wish that she should; but he held strong and unalterable views concerning such inter-racial marriages. He hoped that his honorable friend would pardon him. Sên King-lo did more than that: he liked Yen for his upright frankness, and courage—it takes courage to defy your banker—and Sên King-lo could not condemn Yen, who had never been out of their birthland, for feeling and saying stoutly what he himself had felt as strongly scarcely four years ago, he who had traveled far and wide, from whom long foreign sojourn and alien associations inevitably had rubbed off many natural angles.

So he did all he could to fill his wife’s Hongkong hours pleasantly, to keep a sour thing from her. He knew that he would be glad when they were once more on the Pacific, with their steamer’s prow turned towards the east.

Lo did not notice the absence of the little sugar-basin, and he drank his Chinese tea and ate his English crumpets in high contentment.

“They can’t have done you very well at the Club today at lunch,” Ivy said severely, as he passed his cup for its second refilling and helped himself to a fourth macaroon.