“Did she speak to you?”
“I don’t remember that. The people called her the Old Buddha. They were afraid of her and so they admired her. People have to have someone like her. I was sorry when she died and that revolutionary fellow, Sun Yatsen, took over. People can’t respect a common fellow like that — someone just like themselves. Maybe this new man, Chiang Kai-shek, will be better. He is a soldier, used to command. There is no democratic nonsense about him.”
Emory listened, knowing that he was telling her things he had never told anyone, things that he had forgotten and now drew up out of the wells of his being. At the bottom of everything there was always a permanent complaint against his parents because they had robbed him of his birthright of pride. It had been impossible to explain to them why he was ashamed, and he was the more ashamed because he had the agony of wanting to be proud of his father, and then the humbling realization of knowing that there was something of his father in himself in spite of this hatred, and that he could not simply enjoy all that he had, his money and his great houses and the freedom that success should have bought him, because he could never be free. God haunted him.
This was the bitterness and the trouble and the terror that she found in William’s soul. It made her thoughtful indeed. His conscience was the fox in his vitals.
Upon such musing alone and by the fire in the drawing room of her American home she took her usual afternoon tea on the cold January day. It was not often that she was alone but she had felt tired, the intense activity of this new world city being something to which she was not used. She had been invited to a cocktail party given for that playwright now most successful upon Broadway, Seth James, and. when she telephoned to William that she would not go he had replied that he himself must go since Seth had been a former employee with whom he had disagreed, and if he did not go, it might appear that he held a grudge.
“Do go, by all means,” Emory had said at once.
She found it comfortable to be alone for an hour. It seemed difficult to be alone in America, although in Hulme Castle it had been the most natural state. Now, after she had eaten some small watercress sandwiches and drunk two cups of English tea, she went to the piano William had had made to order especially for her touch and sitting down before it she played for perhaps half an hour, transporting herself as she did so to some vague and distant place that was not America and yet not quite England. She had no wish to return to Hulme Castle and she was quite happy here in this house, as happy as she thought she could be in mortal life. Cecil had left her entirely now, even her dreams, and she seldom thought of him.
In the midst of her music the door opened and she heard the slight cough with which the second man announced his deprecatory presence.
“Well, Henry?” she called, softening her melody without stopping it.
“Please, madame, Mr. Lane’s brother-in-law is here.”
“Mr. Jeremy Cameron?”
She had met Jeremy and William’s rather sweet sister Ruth. She had found it difficult to get on with Ruth’s soft effervescence, but Jeremy she thought charming, although it was unfortunate that he was also the brother of William’s first wife.
“I do hope you won’t mind it that I am Candace’s brother,” Jeremy had said directly when they were first alone. “I assure you that Candace entirely understands about things. She wouldn’t mind meeting you, as a matter of fact — she’s a warmhearted sort of creature.”
“I don’t mind in the least your being her brother,” Emory had replied.
“It’s not Mr. Jeremy, please madame,” Henry now said. “It’s the other brother-in-law — a Mr. Miller, I believe.”
“Oh—” Lady Emory rose from the piano. She knew about Henrietta who, William said, had married a strange sort of man named Clem, who had made an odd success in food monopolies. While she stood in the middle of the floor somewhat uncertain as to how she would receive Clem or whether she should receive him at all, he was at the door looking altogether shadowy, with his sandy gray hair blown about.
“Do come in,” she said.
She was struck by his excessive thinness and the startling blue of his eyes.
“You look cold!” she said with her involuntary kindness. “I think you should have some hot tea.”
To Henry, still hovering in the doorway, she said with distinctness, “Please fetch a pot of hot tea, Henry.”
“Yes, madame.” Henry’s voice breathed doubt as he disappeared.
Clem saw a woman, a lady, who was all gentleness and kindness. It was true that he felt ill for a moment when he first came in. He had eaten nothing since morning.
“I guess I am a little hungry,” he said and tried to smile.
She had him in a comfortable chair instantly and put a hassock under his feet. The fire burned pleasantly and the vast room was quiet about him. Everything was comforting and warm and he sighed away his haste and intensity. In his taut body one muscle and another relaxed. The man came back with hot tea and she poured him a cup.
“Bring him a soft-boiled egg,” she told the man.
“I can’t eat eggs,” Clem protested.
“Indeed you can,” she replied with firmness. “You want an egg — you are so pale.”
“No milk in my tea, please,” Clem said.
While he waited he drank two cups of the delicious hot tea and ate one of the hot biscuits she called scones, and when the egg came it was two, served in a covered cup. There were triangles of toast with it and he ate and felt renewed to the soul.
“Wonderful what food can do,” he said and smiled at her and she smiled back.
“I don’t know what to call you,” he said next.
“Emory, of course. You’re Clem, I know.”
“Aren’t you a lady or something?”
“In a way. Never mind that, though, now that I’m an American.”
Clem folded a small lace-edged napkin with care and put it on the tray.
“I see you believe in feeding folks and that’s what I came to see William about. Maybe he’s told you about me?”
“I believe he said you deal in foods?”
“I like to put it that I deal with people and getting them fed.”
He leaned forward, looking extraordinarily restored and reminding her somehow of the young men in London who were always talking in Hyde Park. She had never stopped to listen to any of them but often they had the same sandy look and shining, too blue eyes. While she sat gazing at him and thinking this, Clem was fluent in preaching his own gospel to this kindly, attentive woman. He had all but forgotten that she took Candace’s place and that he ought not to like her so much, but he did like her. Candace had been kind, too, but it was with a child’s kindness and he had never been sure she understood him. But this woman did understand and she was not at all a child. There was even something sad about her dark eyes.
“You see what I mean?” he paused to ask.
“I do see indeed,” she replied. “I think it is a wonderful idea, only of course you are far ahead of your times. That’s the tragedy of great primary ideas. You won’t live to see it believed or practiced that people have the right to food as they have the right to water and air. The holy trinity of human life!”
He could not bear to have her merely understand him or even believe in him. When one believed, one must act.
He put forth his effort again. “We’ve got to get people to see this, though. That is what I came to William for. He has such power over people.”