“Yes—that's so, of course.”
“It's a curiously blundering people, of course. And there's a hard, really a Teutonic strain—that blend of practical hard-headedness, even of cruelty, with sentimentality—”
Rocky's brows came together. Mr. Doane and his father plainly didn't use that word “sentimental” in the same sense, “—it comes down to a strain of—well, something between the old Anglo-Saxonism and the modern Prussianism. It's in us—in our driving business tactics, our narrow moral intolerance, our insistence on standardizing vulgar ideas—forcing every individual into a mold—in our extraordinary glorification of the salesman. We seem to have a good deal both of the British complacency and the rough aggressiveness of the German. But the health is there—wonderfully. What America needs is beauty—not the self-conscious swarming after it of earnest and misguided suburban ladies—but a quiet sense of the thing itself. Beauty—and simplicity—and patience—and tolerance—and faith. Prosperity has for the moment wrecked faith there. Simply too much money. But you'll find health growing up everywhere. Just let yourself grow with it. You've been deeply impressed by China. But if I were you, I'd let all that take care of itself. Never mind what you may come to feel next year or ten years from now. It may be mainly China or mainly America. Just work, and let yourself grow.”
At the door they clasped hands warmly. And then, finally, Rocky got to the point:
“Mr. Doane—this is what I wanted to say—I saw Hui Fei this afternoon, and—”
Doane was silent; but still gripped his hand, “—and we talked things all out. She knows I'm—knows I'm going back. And—this is it.... You don't mind my.... I think you ought to find time to go over there and see her. She seems puzzled about—I don't know quite how to say all this. You know how I've felt—feel.... Of course, the thing is to look the facts in the face. I hope I'm man enough to do that.” His voice was unsteady now. “I'm not the one. I never was. She was clear about it, to-day, but... I think you ought to see her. Oh, I'm sure it isn't just her father's will....”
Rocky found himself, without the slightest sense of ungentleness on the part of Mr. Doane, through the door and confusedly saying his good-by before the patient clerks and the waiting crowd in the anteroom. He walked back to the hotel with a warm glow of admiration and friendship in his heart. There would be—he knew, even then—sad hours, probably bitter hours, in the long struggle to come. But this talk was going to help.
On Doane the boy's announcement had an almost crushing effect. His spirit was not adjusted to happiness. The terrific strain of the work was a blessing. He framed, that night and during the following day, innumerable little chits to Hui Fei—pretexts, all, for a visit that needed no pretext. And the day passed. Self-consciousness was upon him; and a constant mental difficulty in making the situation credible. And there was the pressure of time; an awareness that to Hui Fei—perhaps even to the Witherys—his silence would soon demand a stronger explanation than the mere pressure of business. He had to keep reminding himself that the girl was helpless, that he himself was the only guardian whose authority she could recognize; his reason whispering from moment to moment that she would not touch the money he had so promptly put at her disposal. No, she would wait.
It was his old friend Henry Withery who brought him to it; appearing late on the Saturday afternoon, determined to drag him off for dinner.... Withery, looking every one of his forty-eight years, patient resignation in the dusty blue eyes, and a fine net of wrinkles about them. His slight limp was the only reminder of tortures inflicted by the Boxers in 1900, out in Kansuh. He had taken over the T'ainan-fu mission for a year after Doane left the church in 1907; and during two years now had been here in Shanghai.
“There's no good killing yourself here, Grig,” he said. “We've not had ten minutes with you yet, remember. And we must talk over that girl's affairs. She's very sweet about it, but it's plain that she's waiting on you.”