“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.