"I will not hinder her," said Nancy, a little sadly, though she was glad that her release from Ming-te promised for months, perhaps for years, to be so complete. She had no tender feelings for her husband, none but impulses of aversion and shame, and yet she was sad because already she seemed to see her father's splendid dream go toppling, and the Chinese marriage of his daughter fast becoming no marriage at all.
"That is not a shrewd policy in this family," observed the lao t'ai-t'ai; "you should always hinder everything. What will you do when I die?"
"I don't know what I shall do when you die. I shall not care much what I do."
"Ha, you are the only member of the family who has not laid plans for that grateful event. Even the pigs, I dare say, have disposed of the warmest parts of this chamber to rest their snouts. But never mind, we must plan that you shall not be the loser for helping me. You are staking more than you know on the choice you have made to-day."
The lao t'ai-t'ai left the subject with this vague promise. Nancy's trouble passed like a cloud; she trusted the power of her aged mistress to defend her from evil, recognizing the wisdom that drew from a fund of experience, to provide against hazards she herself saw but darkly, yet in the back of her mind still lurked a sense of pity because her marriage to Ming-te was being confessed a failure so quickly. She could not stamp out a smouldering jealousy when she saw her place being given to another and knew that her husband of a month remembered her costly sacrifice without one tender thought.
Soon the household was aflame with new plans. To take a concubine, of course, was not to take a wife. The same ceremonies could not be used: there could be no scarlet chair, no procession, no worship of heaven and earth. But everything short of full nuptial rites was proposed to give dignity to Ming-te's second wedding. Nancy could not move through the house without feeling that this, in the eyes of the family, was the real wedding and that they grudged her the few empty privileges of the wife, as though she had stolen them. On this bride they were putting their hopes, from her body they wanted Ming-te to beget sons, not from the foreigner, whose half-caste children could only be the living occasions for explanation and apology.
Hai t'ai-t'ai was as swift in forwarding this wedding as Nancy's, and, because there were no middlemen to be bargained with or gifts to be exchanged, she could soon promise the arrival of the bride whom she personally had chosen and fetched from Peking. On a sharp November day the girl arrived. The house was crowded to receive her, for all the members of the family, the neighbors, the friends, who had been unable to go up to the capital for Nancy's wedding, made the most of this second event and feasted loudly and joyfully at the expense of their hosts. Nancy stood quietly to receive the homage of her new servant. She said nothing at the feast and ate little, listening to the talk of those round her like the stranger she was. She could not help noticing how they held aloof as though they did not regard her as one of themselves. Their eyes were upon the newcomer who had displaced her, and Nancy looked too, admitting her pretty face, her dainty figure, the quick, frightened intelligence of her eyes, thinking so vividly of her own bridal day that she was ready to take the girl by the hands and call her sister.
But she failed of courage to do this. This girl, after all, was being received as a friend whereas she had been received as an enemy. The contrast was too bitter. Nancy sat out the feast to the end, she tried to abide the amusement of putting the bride to bed, lest they should hint that she was jealous, but she knew again, now that people neglected her, as she had learned with such a shock when they mocked her, that she was an alien and had no place among them. Everyone was so unfeignedly happy to-day. Ming-te did not need to be made drunk to desire his new bride. She had been cheated of this happiness. Her thought ran to her father's couplet about the sun and the moon; she had a sudden desperate longing for Ronald, for the gay, secure life of the Ferrises; she could not stand the tumult round her any longer, but fled to her dark room to hide her misery.
It might have been for hours that she wept before a hand touched her.
"Why do you care?" she heard a voice softly asking her.