“I don't understand it myself, dear. Though I walked through it, apparently.”
“Oh, look! They're opening the gate! What is it?” She hopped with impatience, like a child, and clapped her hands. “Oh, I mustn't stay! But tell m, do you think this dreadful business is over?”
“I believe it is, Betty.”
She ran back to her post. And he returned to the gate.
An odd little cavalcade was moving deliberately up the hill. In front marched a soldier in blue bearing a large white flag (an obviously Western touch, this). Behind him came a squad in column of fours, on foot and unarmed; then a green sedan chair with four pole-men; behind this three pavilions with carved wooden tops, of the sort carried in wedding processions, each with four bearers; and last another squad of foot soldiers.
Just outside the gate they came to a halt. The soldiers formed in line on either side of the road. An officer advanced and asked permission to enter. This was granted. At once the chairmen set down their burden. The carved door opened, and a young Chinese gentleman stepped out. He was tall, slim, with large spectacles; and moved with a quiet dignity that amounted to a distinction of bearing. His long robe was of shimmering blue silk embroidered in rose and gold; and the embroidered emblem on his breast exhibited the silver pheasant of a mandarin of the fifth class. On his head, the official, bowl-shaped straw hat with red tassel was surmounted with a ball or button of crystal an inch in diameter set in a mount of exquisitely worked gold. His girdle clasp also was of worked gold with a plain silver button. The shoes that appeared beneath the hem of his robe were richly embroidered and had thick white soles.
Calmly, deliberately, he entered the compound. One of the engineers, an American, addressed him in the Mandarin tongue. He replied, in a deep musical voice, with a pronounced intonation that gave this mellow language, to a casual ear, something the sound of French.
The engineer bowed, and together they moved toward the residence, where a somewhat mystified M. Pourmont awaited them. But first the mandarin turned and signaled to the pavilion bearers, who still waited outside the gate. These came in now, and it became evident that the ornate structures were laden with gifts. There were platters of fruits and of sweetmeats, bottles of wine, cooked dishes, and small caskets, some carved, others lacquered, that might have contained jewels.
Doane, quietly observing the scene, found something familiar in the appearance of the envoy. Something vaguely associated with the judge's yamen at T'ainan-fu. Certainly, on some occasion, he had seen the man. He stood for a brief time watching the two figures, a white man in stained brown clothing, unkempt of appearance but vigorous in person, walking beside the elegant young mandarin, appearing oddly crude beside him, curiously lacking in the grace that marked every slightest movement of the silk-clad Oriental; and the picture dwelt for a time among his thoughts—the oldest civilization in the world, and the youngest. Crude vigor, honest health, contrasted with a decadence that clung meticulously to every slightest subtlety of etiquette. And behind the two, towering above the heads of the ragged bearers, the curving pointed roofs of the three pavilions, still gaily bizarre in form and color despite the weatherbeaten condition of the paint; a childish touch, suggestive of circus day in an American village. Suggestive, too, whimsically, of the second childhood of the oldest race.
Doane, reflecting thus, slowly followed them to the residence.