"I was the moon—then—last year."
"You are still the moon," he declared. "They were not written merely for last year."
Nancy did not answer him. The copied characters of the scroll had been like a glimpse into her father's mind. She had played so long with these riddles as to be profoundly moved by what she saw so clearly her father had meant to be prophecy. Great was her reverence for the written word. She was like the Chinese who will not allow even a scrap of printed paper to be trodden underfoot, like the governor who forbade newspapers to be used for wrapping parcels because this was treating characters shamefully, showing despite to the very means of the culture which sages and poets had labored to create. For scrolls her deference was superstitious. They were oracles, working out their own mystical fulfillment. Versed as she was in their subtlety, in their history, in the earth-shaking powers of a single well-written character, the byplay of allusion which had torn down dynasties or raised men to favor with the Son of Heaven, she looked with fear and bewilderment upon her father's message as though she were reading a mandate of the gods, for the scroll expressed her father's belief and his wish that she should be the wife of this stranger from the West.
"I am engaged," she repeated as though she were defying heaven. "We have promised!"
Nasmith saw this could not be argued further. More words only would make the girl stubborn, perhaps lose him the chance of seeing her again.
"Very well, we won't debate the matter," he said, "but do you think your father would let you come to stay for a few days with my sister—and your brother, of course? My nieces will never be satisfied to miss seeing you; if they heard I had met you, they would send me back for you. And this is not the request of a stranger, you know. After all, I am almost a guardian. You will come, won't you?"
"Why?"
Nancy was in a contrary mood.
"Why?" echoed Nasmith impatiently. "Why? I should not have thought you needed to ask that question. Does not your memory suggest reasons enough? After all, Nancy, you won't find friends so plentiful in this world that you can afford to neglect those you have."
"Perhaps Edward can come," she admitted, "but if I can come—I don't know. It is different for me because I am engaged."