3
Toward morning, before his lamp burned out, Brachey read the lecture to which Mr. Po was pinning such great hopes. It seemed rather hopeless. There was humor, of course, in the curious arrangement of English words; but this soon wore off.
Later, sitting in the dark, waiting for the first faint glow of dawn, and partly as an exercise of will, he pondered the problems clustering about the little, hopeful, always aggressive settlements of white in Chinese Asia. Mr. Po's phrases came repeatedly to mind. That one—“Old China mind dwell in different proposition.” Mr. Po was touching there, consciously or not, on the heart of the many-tinted race problems which this bafflingly complex old world must one day either settle or give up. The inertia of a numerous, really civilized and ancient race like the Chinese was in itself a mighty force, one of the mightiest in the world.... Men like Prince Tuan and this Kang despised the West, of course. And with some reason, when you came down to it. For along Legation Street the whites dwelt in a confusion of motives. They had exhibited a firm purpose only when Legation Street itself was attacked. By no means all the stray casualties among the whites in China were avenged by their governments. In the present little crisis out here in Hansi, it might be a long time—a very long time indeed—before the lumbering machinery of government could be stirred to act in an unaccustomed direction. At the present time there were not enough American troops in China to make possible a military expedition to Ping Yang; merely a company of marines at the legation. To penetrate so far inland and maintain communication an army corps would be needed; troops might even have to be assembled and trained in America. It might take a year. And first the diplomats would have to investigate; then the State Department would have to be brought by heavy and complicated public pressures to the point of actually functioning; a sentimental element back home might question the facts... Meantime, he hadn't yet so much as got Betty safely to Ping Yang.
It was “hard to say.” But he found objective thought helpful. Emotion seemed, this night, not unlike a consuming fire. Emotion was, in its nature, desire. It led toward destruction.
He even made himself sleep a little, in a chair; until John knocked, at seven. Then he changed from evening dress to knickerbockers. His spirit had now sunk so low that he had John serve them separately with breakfast.
When the caravan was ready he went out to the courtyard and busied himself preparing the litter for her. She came out with John, very white, glancing at him with a timid question in her eyes. In his stiffest manner he handed her into the litter.
Then, accompanied by three soldiers, they swung out on the highway. The fourth soldier joined them outside the wall; him Brachey had sent to the telegraph station with a message to his Shanghai bankers advising them that his address would be in care of M. Pourmont, the Ho Shan Company, Ping Yang, Hansi, and further that cablegrams from America were to be forwarded immediately by wire.
4
Only at intervals during the forenoon did Betty and Brachey speak; for the most part he rode ahead of the litter. The luncheon hour was awkward; the dinner hour, when they had settled at their second inn, was even more difficult. They sat over their tin plates and cups in gloomy silence.
Finally Betty pushed her plate away, and rose; went over to the papered window and stared out.