What a joyous little thing she was! What a fairy! And dancing seemed, now, a means of expression for her youth and her gift of charm. And there was an exquisite delight, he found, in watching her skill with the young men. She was gay, quick, tactful. Clearly young men had, before this, admired her. He wondered what sort of men.
She interrupted this brooding with one of those slightly perturbed glances. Quickly he lowered his hand in order that she might see him smile; but she had whirled away.
Joy!... Not before this moment, not in all the years of puzzled, sometimes bitter thinking, had he realized the degree in which mission life—for that matter, the very religion of his denominational variety—shut joy out. They were afraid of it. They fought it. In their hearts they associated it with vice It was of this world; their eyes were turned wholly to another.
His teeth grated together. The muscles of his strong jaws moved; bunched on his cheeks. He knew now that he believed in joy as an expression of life.
Had he known where to turn for the money he would gladly have planned, at this moment, to send Betty back to the States, give her more of an education, even arrange for her to study drawing and painting. For on the train, during their silences, she had sketched the French conductor, the French-speaking Chinese porter, the sleepy, gray-brown, walled villages, the wide, desert-like flats of the Hoang-Ho, the tumbling hills. He was struck by her persistence at it; the girlish energy she put into it.
That night, late, long after the music had stopped and the last guests had left for their dwellings about the large compound, she came across the corridor and tapped at his door. She wore a kimono of Japan; her abundant brown hair rippled about her shoulders.
“Just one more good night, Daddy,” she murmured.
And then, turning away, she added this, softly:
“I never thought about the dancing until—well, we'd started...”
He stood a long moment in silence, then said: