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Before there could be an answer they heard his footsteps. Peony preceded him, drawing aside the scarlet satin curtain with delicate fingers. He stood there, tall and dark, his impetuous eyes searching the two faces now turned to him.

“You sent for me, Father — Mother—”

“Come in and sit down, my son,” Ezra said kindly.

“Where have you been?” his mother asked at the same time.

He answered neither of them. He sat down near his father and Peony poured him a bowl of tea and silently set it on the table beside him. Then she took her usual place behind Ezra and drawing the fan again from her sleeve, she opened it and began to move it slowly to and fro. Her eyes were half hidden beneath her drooped lids. David looked at her and away again. It was impossible to discern from that smooth pearly surface what thoughts flowed beneath.

“David, it is time—” Madame Ezra began.

The young man whirled around on his seat. “Time for what?” he demanded.

“You know, my son,” Madame Ezra said. She humbled herself, she made her voice pleading, knowing full well how easily this beloved only child could harden himself.

“I don’t know, Mother,” he retorted.

Madame Ezra pleaded, “Leah is eighteen, David. And you are a man. And I promised her mother.”

“Your promises have nothing to do with me,” he said shortly.

“But you have always known—” Madame Ezra reminded him.

“I do not know now,” he interrupted her. “Besides, I don’t love Leah.”

“Shame on you!” Madame Ezra cried. “Last night you were friendly enough.”

“This morning I remember her nose is too long,” David said.

Madame Ezra spread out her hands and rolled her eyes from one face to the other. “She is a good girl — pretty, too — and learned in our faith. She will be a light in this house after I am gone.”

“Still her nose is too long,” David insisted.

It had become a habit for him to oppose his mother, and he did so unreasonably now. He knew well enough that Leah’s nose was a handsome one, and had his mother kept silent, he might have remembered only Leah’s beauty. But he was still childish enough to want to be free at all costs, and now he glared stubbornly at his mother and then laughed.

“Don’t marry me off so young, Mother,” he cried gaily.

Ezra laughed out loud. Peony allowed herself the smallest of smiles. Wang Ma’s face was expressionless. Madame Ezra felt no support. She bit her lip, sighed, and summoned all her adoration of her son. When she turned to him again her full dark eyes were moist and her lips quivered.

“David, my son,” she began in her richest, softest tones, “do not break your mother’s heart. No, wait, I do not ask you to think of me, David. Think of our people! You and Leah, David — together — your children — carrying on the blood of Judah, in this heathen land! Such a good girl, David — a good wife, always loving you and the home, teaching the children about God! When the time comes for us to go back to our own country, our promised land—”

David broke in, “But I don’t want to go away. This is where I was born, Mother — here, in this house.”

Madame Ezra dropped her persuasion. Honest temper blazed in her full face. “Dare to speak so to your mother!” she shouted. “God grant us the chance to go back to the land of our fathers before we die — you and I and your father and all our house!”

Ezra coughed behind his hand. “I couldn’t leave my business, Naomi.”

“I am not talking about tomorrow!” Madame Ezra shouted. “I am talking about God’s good time, when the prophets lead us.”

“I may as well speak,” David said suddenly. “Mother, I want to tell you something.” He rose and they looked at him as he stood, tall and beautiful, before them. “Mother, I won’t marry Leah, because I love someone else.”

Madame Ezra’s firm jaw dropped. Ezra lifted his tea bowl. Peony stood, her eyes on David. The little silk fan was motionless in her hand. Wang Ma turned away her head.

“Who is it?” Madame Ezra demanded.

David faced his mother, his cheeks scarlet. “I saw someone — in the Kung house—”

“When?” Madame Ezra demanded with passion. Her strength returned.

“Two days ago,” David said simply.

Madame Ezra turned upon her husband. Her black eyes blazed at him. “You said — it was you who—”

Ezra groaned. “My dear, you compel us all to lie to you,” he remarked sadly. He lifted his heavy-lidded eyes to his son. “Go on,” he commanded him. “Now you have begun, finish! You saw a pretty girl. Did you speak with her?”

“Of course not,” David cried. “She — she said something—‘Oh, oh’—something like that — and she ran out of the room as fleetly as — as a—”

“As a fawn?” Ezra suggested dryly.

David looked astonished. “Father, how did you know? Have you seen her, too?”

“No,” Ezra replied. “Not this one. But I believe ‘fawn’ is the usual term.”

“What folly!” Madame Ezra said in a loud voice. “Ezra, I am shocked!”

Ezra rose suddenly. “I’m sorry, Naomi. Really, I can’t stay — Kung Chen is waiting and he is not the sort that does wait, you know.”

“Sit down, both of you,” Madame Ezra said imperiously. “David, you shall be betrothed on the tenth day of the eighth month. It is the anniversary of the day upon which Leah’s mother and I made our promise.”

She met her son’s eyes full and they looked at each other. His eyes fell. “I won’t — I won’t,” he muttered. “I’ll kill myself first.” He turned and strode from the room.

“Go after him, Peony,” Ezra commanded.

Peony needed no command. She was already halfway to the door and she disappeared behind the satin curtain.

To this revelation David had made she had listened with astonished ears. And she had dreamed that she knew all his heart! More than she had suffered last night for Leah’s sake she now grieved that David had hidden this from her. She ran across the corridor and out upon the long verandas that lined the courts. Where had he gone? She paused, finger to lips, her eyes closed, pondering. He would want to escape, and where could he escape except into the streets? She turned and ran swiftly and lightly toward the gate.

In the silence of the great hall the two elders sat. Wang Ma sighed and filled the tea bowls again. Ezra’s face was grave and Madame Ezra touched her eyes with her handkerchief. After a moment Ezra spoke, and his voice was very gentle. “Naomi, we waited a long time for this only child.”

But she was not to be moved. “I had rather he had never been born than to see him lost to our people,” she said heavily.

Ezra sighed, got to his feet, prepared to go. But he could not leave her so easily. He knew her heart after all these years, the great stubborn hot heart of a Jewish wife and mother. “Ah, Naomi,” he said sadly. “If only you women could let us be what we are!”

She did not reply. She turned her face from him and held her handkerchief to her eyes, and he motioned to Wang Ma. “Take care of her,” he murmured, and went away.

When he had gone Madame Ezra broke into loud sobs, as though she were alone. As though, too, it were the habit of years, Wang Ma moved to her side and took her hand and patted it softly, massaging the fingers and the wrist, pinching the firm flesh gently. One hand and the other she so comforted, and then she pressed Madame Ezra’s temples again and again between her palms, and Madame Ezra was quieted and she leaned back against her chair and closed her eyes. Thus was she soothed.

But under her fingers Wang Ma felt the busy stubborn brain still working. “Ah, Lady,” she murmured. “Let men have their way! What does it matter to women? To sleep — to eat — to enjoy our own lives — that is best.”

They were the wrong words and instantly she regretted them. Madame Ezra’s fiery black eyes sprang open. She sat up and turned on her serving woman. “You Chinese!” she said with bitter contempt. “You Chinese!” She rose as she spoke, and pushed aside Wang Ma’s hands and left the room with imperious speed.