The lady had been looking at him very closely as he spoke, and she said mildly, “I could not believe the man when he said it was you. It has been so long since I saw you that I would not know you, except you are so like your father. Yes, none could fail to see you are the Tiger’s son. Come in, then, and be at home.”
And though the servant looked still doubtful the lady urged Yuan to come in and she was so mild and placid that she seemed not surprised at all, or in truth as though anything on this earth could surprise her now. No, she led him into a narrow hall, and then she bade the servant make a room ready with a bed in it, and asked Yuan if he had eaten and she opened a door into a guest hall, and asked him to be seated there and at his ease while she went to fetch certain things for his comfort in the room the servant made ready for him. All this she did so easily and with such ready welcome that Yuan was pleased and warmed and felt himself a welcome guest at last, and this was very sweet to him, wearied as he was with what had come about between his father and himself.
In this guest hall he sat himself down upon an easy chair and waited wondering, for it was not such a room as he had ever seen, but, as his way was, showing no wonder or excitement on his grave face. He sat quietly, wrapped in his long robe of dark silk, looking a little about the room, yet looking not so much that if one came in he would be surprised at such a thing, for he was of a nature which hated to seem strange or ill at ease in any new place. It was a small, square room and very clean, so clean that on the floor a flowered woolen cloth was spread, and even this had no soil upon it. In the center of this cloth a table stood, and on the table another cloth of red velvet, and in this center a pot of pink paper flowers, very real to see, except the leaves were silver and not green. There were six chairs such as the one he sat on, soft in the seat and covered with pink satin. At the windows were hung white strips of fine cloth, and on the wall was hung a picture of a foreign sort behind a pane of glass. This picture showed high mountains very blue, a lake as blue, and on the mountains foreign houses such as he had not seen. It was very bright and pretty to the eye.
Suddenly a bell rang somewhere, and Yuan turned his head to the door. He heard quick footsteps, and then a girl’s voice high and full of laughter. He listened. It could be perceived she spoke to someone, although he heard no answering voice, and many words she used he scarcely understood, ripples interspersed of some foreign tongue.
“Ah, it is you?—No, I am not busy—Oh, I am tired today, I danced so late last night—You are teasing me—She is much prettier than I—You laugh at me—She dances much better than I do—even the white men want to dance with her—Yes, it is true I did dance with the young American—Ah, how he can dance—I will not tell you what he said!—No, no, no!—Then I will go with you tonight—ten o’clock! I will have dinner first—”
He heard a pretty rill of laughter and suddenly the door opened and he saw a girl there, and he rose to bow, his eyes dropped down in courtesy, avoiding a direct look at her. But she ran forward swiftly, graceful as a darting swallow and as quick, her hands outstretched. “You are my brother Yuan!” she cried gaily in her little soft voice, a voice high and floating seemingly upon the air. “My mother said you were here all of a sudden—” She seized his hands and laughed. “How old-fashioned you are in that long robe! Shake hands like this—everybody shakes hands now!”
He felt her small smooth hand seize his, and he pulled his own away, too shy to bear it—staring at her while he did it. She laughed again and sat down on the arm of a chair and turned her face up at him, the prettiest little face, three-cornered as a kitten’s, the black hair smooth and curled upon her rounded cheeks. But it was her eyes that held him, the brightest, blackest eyes shot through with light and laughter, and beneath them was her red little mouth, the lips very full and red and yet small and delicate.
“Sit down,” she cried, a little imperious queen.
He sat then, very carefully upon the edge of a chair, not near her, and she laughed again.
“I am Ai-lan,” she went on in her light fluttering voice. “Do you remember me? I remember you so well. Only you have grown up better than you were—you used to be an ugly little boy—your face so long. But you must have some new clothes—all my cousins wear foreign clothes now—you would look nice in them—so tall! Can you dance? I love to dance. Do you know our cousins? My eldest cousin’s wife dances like a fairy! You should see my old uncle! He’d like to dance, but he is so old and hugely fat, and my aunt won’t let him. You should see him when she scolds him for staring at pretty girls!” Again she laughed her restless, flying laughter.
Yuan stole a look at her. She was slighter than any creature he had ever seen, as small as any child about the body, and her green silk robe fitted as tightly to her as a calyx to a bud, the collar high and close about her slender neck, and in her ears were little rings of pearls and gold. He looked away and coughed a little behind his hand.
“I came to pay my respects to our mother and to you,” he said.
She smiled at this, mocking his sedateness, a smile that set her face twinkling, and she rose and went to the door, her step so swift it seemed like a light running.
“I’ll go and find her, brother,” she said, making her voice solemn to mock his. Then she laughed again and flung a teasing look at him from out her black kitten’s eyes.
The room was very quiet with her going, as though a little busy wind had suddenly ceased to blow in it. Yuan sat astonished, not able to comprehend this girl. She was not like anyone he had ever seen in all his soldier’s life. He set his brain to remember how she was when they were small together before his father made him leave his mother’s court. He remembered this same swiftness, this prattle, this darting of her great black eyes. He remembered, too, how dull his days had seemed at first without her, how lifeless were his father’s courts. Remembering it, even now this room seemed too quiet and lonely and he wished she would come back to it, and he was eager to see her more, because he wanted more of laughter like hers. Suddenly he thought again how his whole life long had been without laughter, always filled with a duty of some kind or other, and how he had never play and merriment such as any poor child has upon the street and such as any crowd of laboring men has if they stop a moment to rest in the sunshine of noon and eat their food together. His heart beat a little quickly. What had this city for him, what laughter and what gaiety such as all young men must love, what new shining life?
When the door sounded again, therefore, he looked eagerly towards it but now it was not Ai-lan. It was the lady, and she came in quietly and as one who made her house ready and full of good ease and comfort for all. Behind her came the serving man bearing on a tray some bowls of hot food, and she said, “Set the food here. Now, Yuan, you must eat a little more if you would please me, for I know the food upon the trains is not like this. Eat, my son—for you are my son, Yuan, since I have had no other, and I am glad you have sought me out, and I want you to tell me everything and how you are come here.”
When Yuan heard this good lady speak kindly and when he saw her face honest in its look and meaning and when he heard her comfortable voice and saw the inviting look her little mild eyes had when she put a chair for him beside a table, he felt foolish tears come to his eyes. Never, he thought passionately within himself, had such gentle welcome been made for him anywhere—no, no one was so kind to him as this. Suddenly the warmth of this house, the gayness of the colors of the room, the remembered laughter of Ai-lan, the comfort of this lady, rose up and wrapped him round. He ate eagerly, for he found himself very hungry and the food was seasoned carefully and not scant of fat or sauces as foods are when they are bought, and Yuan, forgetting how once he had eaten eagerly of country fare, thought now this was the best, most heartening food he ever ate, and he ate his fill. Yet he was quickly satisfied because the dishes were so fat and highly seasoned, and he could eat no more in spite of all the lady’s urging.
When it was over and the lady waited while he ate, she
bade him sit in the easy chair again, and then warmed and fed and comforted, Yuan told her everything and even things he scarcely knew himself. Now he met the lady’s gaze, a full, waiting gaze, and suddenly his shyness dropped from him and he began to speak and tell her all he wanted—how he had hated war and how he wanted to live upon the land, not ignorantly, as the peasants did, but as a wise husbandman, one learned enough to teach the peasants better ways. And he told how for his father’s sake he ran from his captain secretly and now in some new understanding of himself those wise eyes gave him while they rested on him, he said, troubled, “I thought I ran because I would not go against my father, but now as I tell it, lady, I see I went partly because I hate the killing my comrades must do some day even in their good cause. I cannot kill—I am not brave, I know. The truth is I cannot hate wholly enough to kill a man. I always know how he feels, too.”
He looked at the lady humbly, ashamed to show his weakness. But she answered tranquilly, “Not everyone can kill, it’s true, else would we all be dead, my son.” And after a while she said more kindly still, “I am glad you cannot kill, Yuan. It is better to save life than take it, and so I think, although I serve no Buddhist god.”
But it was not until he told haltingly and half ashamed how the Tiger would have him wed anyhow to any maid that the lady was fully moved. Until now she had listened to him kindly and full of comprehension, murmuring small assents now and then when he waited for a moment. But when he hung his head and said, “I know he has the right to do it—I know the law and customs—but I could not bear it. I cannot—I cannot—I must have my body for my own and free—” And then troubled by his own memory of his hatred against his father and needing to confess it somehow he said further, for he wanted to tell everything, “Almost I understand how sons kill their fathers in these days—not that I could really do it, but I understand the feeling in those with a readier hand than mine.”
He looked at the lady to see if this were too hard for her to hear, but it was not. She said with a new force and with more certainty than she had yet spoken, “You are right, Yuan. Yes, I always tell the parents of the youth nowadays, the fathers and the mothers of Ai-lan’s friends, and even your uncle and his lady, who complain unceasingly against this generation, that in this at least the young are right. Oh, I know very well how right you are. I will never force Ai-lan to any marriage—and I will help you, if need be, against your father in this thing, for here I am sure you are truly right.”
This she said sadly, but with some secret passion gathered from her own life, and Yuan wondered to see her small quiet eyes change and sparkle so, and her whole placid face grow moved. But he was too young to think long of any other than himself and the comfort of her words joined to the comfort of this quiet house, and he said longingly, “If I could stay here for a while until I can see what I must do—”
“And so you shall,” she answered warmly. “You shall stay here as long as you have need. I have ever wanted a son of my own and here you are.”
The truth was the lady suddenly loved this tall dark youth and she liked the big honest look upon his face and she liked the slow way he moved, and though he might not be pretty by the measure of the usual guess, being too high-cheeked and his mouth too big, still he was taller than most young men are, and she liked a certain shyness and a delicacy he had about him when he spoke, as though even if he were willful he was not too sure of his own abilities. Yet this delicacy was only in his speech, for his voice was deep and good and a man’s voice.
And Yuan saw her liking and was yet more warmed by it and it made this house his home. When they had talked a little more, she led him to a small room which was to be his own. It was up a stair and then up another smaller winding stair, and under the roof it stood, clean and with all the things he needed. When she was gone and he was alone, he went and looked out of the window and there was the light upon the many streets and all the city lay glittering and shining and in the high darkness he seemed looking into a new heaven of some sort.
Now began for Yuan a new life indeed, a full new life such as he had never dreamed for himself. In the morning when he rose and washed and clothed himself, he went down the stairs and there the lady waited for him, and she had her same beaming look this morning to set him at fresh ease. She led Yuan in to where the breakfast was upon the table, and at once she began to tell him what her plans were for him, but always very carefully too, so that she might not say a thing against his will. First, she said, she must buy him some garments, since he came forth in only what he had upon him, and then she must send him to a school for young men in that city. She said, “There is no great haste, my son, for you to work. It is better in these days to have your fill of this new learning, or else what you will earn will be very little. Let me treat you as my son. Let me give you what I had planned for Ai-lan if she would have had it. You shall go to this school here until it is clear what your place is in your books, and when you are finished here, then you may work, or you may even go to some foreign country for a while. Nowadays the young men and women are all zealous to go abroad, and I say it is a good thing for them to go. Yes, though your uncle cries out it is a waste and that they all come back too full of their own skill and abilities so that there is no living with them, I say still it is well for them to go and learn what they can and come back and give it to their own country. I only wish Ai-lan—” Here the lady stopped and looked sorrowful for a while and as though she had forgotten what she spoke of because of some inner trouble of her own. Then she made her face clear again and said resolutely, “Ai, I must not try to shape Ai-lan’s life—If she will not, then she will not—and do not let me shape you, either, son! I only say that if you would—if you will—why, then I can think of a way to do it.”
Now Yuan was so dazed at all this newness that he could scarcely take it all into him, and he stammered forth joyfully, “Be sure I can only thank you, lady, and I do most gladly what you say—” And he sat down and in his young new hunger and in all the joyfulness of a heart at rest and a place to be his home he ate a mighty breakfast, and the lady laughed and was pleased and said, “I swear I am glad you are come, Yuan, if for nothing else than that I shall see you eat, for Ai-lan is so fearful lest she put a little flesh upon her bones she dares not eat at all, scarcely, and not more than a kitten does, and she will not rise from her bed in the morning lest seeing food she crave it. She cares for beauty more than for anything, that child of mine. But I like to see the young eat!”
So saying she took her own chopsticks and searched out the best bits of the fish and fowl and condiments for Yuan, and took far greater pleasure in his healthy hunger than in anything she ate herself.
So began Yuan’s new life. First this lady went out to great shops of silks and woolen stuffs sent from the foreign countries, and she called tailors to the house and they cut and measured all the stuffs and made robes for Yuan according to the city fashions. And the lady hastened them, because Yuan still had his old robes on, and they were cut too wide and in a country style and she would not let him go to see his uncle and cousins while he wore them, and when they heard he was come, for be sure Ai-lan must tell them that he was there, they bid him come to a feast of welcome. But the lady held them off a day until his best robe was finished, a robe of satin peacock blue and flowered in the same color and a short jacket, sleeved, of black satin. And Yuan was glad she did, for when he clothed himself in the new garment and had called a city barber to come and cut his hair and shave the young soft hairs from off his face and when he had put on his feet the new leather shoes the lady bought for him, and had drawn on the black short silken jacket and put on his head a foreign hat of felt such as every young man wore, he could not but know, as he stared into the mirror on the wall in his own room, that he looked a very fine young man, and like all the young men in this city, and it was only nature to be glad of this.
Yet this very knowledge made him shamefaced, and he went down very shyly to the room where the lady wai
ted for him, and Ai-lan was there, too, and she clapped her hands to see him and cried out, “Ah, you are a very beautiful young man now, Yuan!” And she laughed so teasingly that Yuan felt the blood rush up to make his face and neck red, so that she laughed again. But the lady rebuked her mildly and turned him about to see that all was right, and it was, and she was pleased again with him, because his body was so straight and strong it paid her to see how well her pains were rewarded in his better looks.
On the second day after this one the feast was set, and Yuan went with his sister and with the lady whom already he called mother—and the word came to his tongue more easily than it did for his own mother, somehow—to his uncle’s house. They went in a vehicle not drawn by horses, but forced by an engine in its vitals and driven by a serving man, and Yuan had never sat in such a thing before, but he liked it very well because it ran as smoothly as though it went on ice.
While they went and before they ever reached his uncle’s house Yuan knew much about his uncle and his aunts and cousins, for Ai-lan chattered of them, telling this thing and another, laughing as she told, and with such sly looks and twistings of her little round red mouth as added point to every word. And as she talked Wang Yuan could see the very pictures of their kin and in spite of his decorum he laughed, she was so witty and so mischievous. He saw his uncle as she told him off, “A very mountain of a man, Yuan, holding such a paunch before him I swear he needs to grow another leg to carry it on, and jowls down to his shoulders, and bald as any priest! But far from any priest, Yuan, and only sore against his fat, because he cannot dance as his sons do—though how he thinks to clasp a maid and have her near him—” At such a thought the maid burst into laughter and her mother cried out mildly, but her eyes twinkled, too, “Ai-lan, take care of your words, my child. He is your uncle.”