“She is!”—fiercely—“Shame upon you!”
Lin Fo began to walk on, but the girl kept by his side and continued:
“You wanted your wife to be an American woman while you remained a Chinaman. For all your clever adaptation of our American ways you are a thorough Chinaman. Do you think an American would dare treat his wife as you have treated yours?”
Wan Lin Fo made no response. He was wondering how he could ever have wished his gentle Pau Tsu to be like this angry woman. Now his Pau Tsu was gone. His anguish for the moment made him oblivious to the presence of his companion and the words she was saying. His silence softened the American girl. After all, men, even Chinamen, were nothing but big, clumsy boys, and she didn’t believe in kicking a man after he was down.
“But, cheer up, you’re sure to find her,” said she, suddenly changing her tone. “Probably her maid has friends in Chinatown who have taken them in.”
“If I find her,” said Lin Fo fervently, “I will not care if she never speaks an American word, and I will take her for a trip to China, so that our son may be born in the country that Heaven loves.”
“You cannot make too much amends for all she has suffered. As to Americanizing Pau Tsu—that will come in time. I am quite sure that were I transferred to your country and commanded to turn myself into a Chinese woman in the space of two or three months I would prove a sorry disappointment to whomever built their hopes upon me.”
Many hours elapsed before any trace could be found of the missing one. All the known friends and acquaintances of little Pau Tsu were called upon and questioned; but if they had knowledge of the young wife’s hiding place they refused to divulge it. Though Lin Fo’s face was grave with an unexpressed fear, their sympathies were certainly not with him.
The seekers were about giving up the search in despair when a little boy, dangling in his hands a string of blue beads, arrested the attention of the young husband. He knew the necklace to be a gift from Pau Tsu to the maid, A-Toy. He had bought it himself. Stopping and questioning the little fellow he learned to his great joy that his wife and her maid were at the boy’s home, under the care of his grandmother, who was a woman learned in herb lore.
Adah Raymond smiled in sympathy with her companion’s evident great relief.