3
Young Li Hsien, of T'ainan had come up on the boat. Doans talked a moment with him on the wharf. He was taking the Peking Express in the morning, traveling first-class. The boy's father was a wealthy banker and had always been generous with his firstborn son.
Li appeared in the dining-car at noon, calmly smiling, and, at Doane's imitation, sat with him and Betty. He carried a copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra, in English, with a large number of protruding paper bookmarks.
Doane glanced in some surprise at the volume lying rather ostentatiously on the table, and then at the pigtailed young man who ate foreign food with an eagerness and a relish that indicated an excited interest in novel experiment not commonly found among his race.
They talked in Chinese. Li had much to say of the Japanese. He admired them for adopting and adapting to their own purposes the material achievements of the Western world. He had evidently heard something of Theodore Roosevelt and rather less of Lloyd George and Karl Marx. Doane was of the opinion, later, that during the tiffin hour the lad had told all he had learned in six months at Tokio. When asked why he was not finishing out his college year he smiled enigmatically and spoke of duties at home. He knew, of course, that Doane would instantly dismiss the reason as meaningless; it was his Chinese way of suggesting that he preferred not to answer the question.
Twenty-four hours later they transferred their luggage to the Hansi Line, and headed westward into the red hills; passing, within an hour, through the southern extension of the Great Wall, now a ruin. The night was passed in M. Pourmont's compound at Ping Yang. After this there were two other nights in ancient, unpleasant village inns.
Duane made every effort to lessen the discomforts of the journey. Outwardly kind, inwardly emotions fought with one another. He felt now that he should never have sent for Betty; never in the world She seemed to have had no practical training. She grew quiet and wistful as the journey proceeded. The little outbreaks of enthusiasm over this or that half-remembered glimpse of native life came less frequently from day to day.
There were a number of young men at Ping Yang; one French engineer who spoke excellent English; an Australian; others, and two or three young matrons who had adventurously accompanied their husbands into the interior. They all called in the evening. The hospitable Pourmont took up rugs and turned on the talking-machine, and the young people danced.
Doane sat apart, watched the gracefully gliding couples; tried to smile. The dance was on, Betty in the thick of it, before he realized what was meant. He couldn't have spoken without others hearing. It was plain enough that she entered into it without a thought; though as the evening wore on he thought she glanced at him, now and then, rather thoughtfully. And he found himself, at these moments, smiling with greater determination and nodding at her.
The incident plunged him, curiously, swiftly, into the heart of his own dilemma. He rested an elbow on a table and shaded his eyes, trying, as he had been trying all these years, to think.