At noon, after an hour's quiet sleep, I was again aroused by Chan-King, who stood beside a maidservant with a tray.
I sat up. "I expected to be out for luncheon," I said, preparing to rise.
Chan-King looked perturbed. "Stay where you are," he warned. "My mother has just been scolding me for allowing you to travel with a ten-days-old baby. 'As if I could do anything about it!' I told her, blaming it all on Eve in the most approved Christian fashion! She admires your spirit, but thinks that, for your health's sake, you should rest two weeks longer at least!"
I lay down meekly. "Very well," I said. "Obedience is my watchword!"
And for the prescribed time I lay in my pretty room—all my senses deeply responsive to the life going on in a Chinese household: the clang of small gongs that summoned the servants; much laughter coming in faintly or clearly as my doors were opened or shut; the tap of lily feet along the passage; the glimmer of Madame Springtime's radiant pink or blue robes as she entered to inquire after my welfare or bring some new delicacy that had been procured for me; the smoke of incense from the altar floating into the room at intervals, with a pungent sweetness that roused vague memories and emotions. Everything in the house—hangings, clothes, furnishings—was saturated with this aroma. Mingled with a bitter smell, which is distilled by immense age, and touched with the irritative quality of dust, this odour now means China to me and it is more precious than all other perfumes in the world.
"But, Chan-King, life is nothing but food!" I protested, about the third day, when my fourth meal had been served to me early in the afternoon.
"But the quantities are small," he answered. "Much better way, don't you think, than taking great meals many hours apart?"
Early in the morning, the young maid assigned to me would bring in a bowl of hot milk and biscuit. In our apartment, at half-past eight, she would serve breakfast, consisting of soft-boiled rice—congee—with various kinds of salty, sweet and sour preparations. At eleven o'clock there was turtle soup or chicken broth. At noon came tiffin, which consisted of substantial meat and vegetable dishes, fish and soup, and dry-boiled rice. Our mid-afternoon refreshment was noodles of wheat or bean-flour, or perhaps a variety of fancy cakes. Tea, kept hot by a basket-cosy, was always on hand in every room. At seven the family dined, and, after the two weeks were up, I joined them, sitting at the first table with Mother and my husband. Dinner was an elaborate meal, in courses, with rice at the close. At bedtime came hot milk again, or sweet congee or perhaps tea, brewed from lotus-seed or almonds. I was continually nibbling. I thought Chinese food delicious, particularly in my husband's province, noted for its delicious "crunchy" fried things.
But Chan-King had yearnings for American dishes. I gave the head cook minute instructions for preparing fricasseed chicken, fresh salads, beefsteak with Spanish sauce—even American hot cakes, and he enjoyed the American canned goods, with butter, cheese, jams and bread, which were brought in frequently from the port.