But they both knew that it was not surprise, but horror and revulsion, that had wrung that half-scream cry from her whitening lips.
They made the best of it—passed it by—both too well bred, too brave, and too kind to do less.
But it stayed.
And shyness—that slowly grew almost to strangeness—crept between Sên King-lo and his wife.
CHAPTER XLIII
In the miserable days that followed that day, Sên King-lo’s loyalty never swerved, but his love reeled. He still loved his wife—love does not die in an hour; only slow torture and persistent mal-usage can kill love—but his contentment in her was maimed. But his loyalty held, for he clung to it fast, and loyalty won.
He wooed her again, with no show of passion, but taxing every resource of his splendid nature and subtle mind to draw her back to her old confidence and contentment. His contentment was bruised and marred, but his soul resolved that her contentment and ease should return. There were men in England and America who ranked Sên King-lo high, as high in ability and skill as in character—and they all were big men and wise, and skilled in their weighing and gaging of manhood. But never before had he been so nearly great as he was now, or so fine in method and difficult achievement. He demanded nothing, pressed nothing, labored nothing; but he heaped her comforts about her, anticipated her needs and created them. And presently his charm reached her again (even through the Chinese motley it wore) and steeped her again in warmth and satisfaction. He wooed her again for himself and succeeded in his suit. He wooed her, too, for China and failed, failed in the pictured loveliness all about them, as he knew he perhaps was destined to fail again in the teeming home of many people and old customs to which he was taking her now.
She spoke of the beauty about them, its delicacy and majesty; tiny flowers in the brookside moss, rivers of white light, torrents of shadow on great crags and mountain forests—but she never saw it. And Sên King-lo knew; but he tended her gently and waited.
At night, when dusk and darkness curtained, he came to her tent, or threw himself down by her side on the ferns gaily, wearing once more his light English tweeds and carrying an English book in his hand, an English jest on his lips, or gossip of cricket and golf. He longed to read Yuan Mei (China’s garden genius of happiness, of thought, and of singing) to her here where the world was steeped in all that had moved Yuan Mei to song: longed to give her (because she was his, and he hers) what Yuan Mei, Tu Fu, and Ou-Yang Hsin had given him, what China gave him; but he bottled his longing up and read “Daniel Deronda,” or, instead, a novel from Mudie’s, a Morning Post leader, or verses from Punch.
His heart ached, but his nerve never failed or his vigilance slacked. And all the time China was calling him, claiming him, possessing him wholly, as a child in the womb of his mother.