 CHAPTER 1 OF MY CHINESE MARRIAGE In America. I saw Chan King Liang for the first time on a certain Monday morning in October. It was the opening day of college and the preceding week had been filled with the excitement incidental to the arrival of many students in a small town given over to family life. Every household possessed of a spare room was impressed with the fact that good citizenship demanded that it harbour a student. Therefore, when I saw trunks and boxes and bags being tumbled upon the front porch of our next door neighbour, I said to Mother, Mrs. James has succumbed and set out for my first class with Celia, an old friend. As we crossed the campus we noticed a group of boys gathered on the steps of College Hall and talking among themselves. Celia turned to me. Do you see the one with a very black hair, his face turned away a little, the one in the grey suit, Margaret? Well, that is the new Chinese student, and the boys all say he is a wonder. My cousin knew him last year in Chicago, where he was a freshman, going in for international law and political science. Imagine! I turned and glanced with a faint interest at the foreign student on whose black hair the sun was shining. My first impression was of a very young smiling lad. Looks well enough, I said, rather ungraciously, and we passed on. I was a busy student eagerly beginning my freshman year's work, and I thought no more of the young Chinese. But a day or so later I discovered him to be the owner of those trunks and bags I had seen assembled on Mrs. James's porch. Chang King was my next door neighbour. We were never introduced to each other as it happened, and though we shared studies in German and French we did not exchange a word for some time. I found myself admiring his feet of learning two foreign languages through the medium of English, a third, and doing it so very well. At the same time, though I was not then aware of the fact, he was also admiring me for proficiency in these subjects, in which I was working hard, because I intended to teach languages. The progress of my interest in him was gradual and founded on a sense of his complete remoteness and utter failure to regard him as a human being like the rest of us. He was the first of his race I had ever seen. But finally we spoke to one another by some chance, and after that it seemed unnecessary to refuse to walk to class with him on a certain morning when we came out of our houses at the same moment. We parted at college hall door with an exchange of informal little nods. I was happily impressed, but my impulse to friendship suffered a quick reaction from all that Chang King was when viewed against the background of his race. As I saw it I had no intention whatever of continuing our association. Naturally Chang King knew nothing of this. I think I was probably a trifle more courteous to him than was necessary. I remember being uneasy for fear of wounding him by some thoughtless remark that would reveal my true state of mind about China. I lost sight of the race in the individual. I even pretended not to notice that he was waiting for me morning after morning when I emerged, always a trifle late, hurrying to classes. By the close of the first semester we were making the trip together almost daily, as a matter of course. He was gay and friendly, with a sort of frank joyousness that was his own special endowment for living. I enjoyed his companionship, his talk, his splendid spirit. His cheerfulness was a continual stimulant to my moody, introspective, static temperament. I used to study his face, which in repose had the true oriental impassivity, a stillness that suggested an inner silence, or brooding. But this mood was rare in those days, and I remember best his laughter, his shining eyes that never missed the merriment to be had from the day's routine events. For a while we were merely two very conventional young students walking sedately together, talking with eagerness on what now seemed amusingly sober and carefully chosen subjects. We were both determined to be dignified and impersonal. I was nineteen, and Chang King was two years older. Finally Chang King asked to call, and he appeared at the door that evening, laden with an enormous irregular package, a collection of treasures that he thought might interest us. We all gathered about the library table, where he spread a flaming array of embroidered silks, carved ivory and sandalwood, and curious little images in bronze and blackwood. They gave out a delicious fragrance, spicy and warm and sweet, with a bitter tang to it, a mingling of oils and lacquers and dust of incense. He was very proud of half a dozen neckties his mother had made him, patterned carefully after the American one he had sent her as a souvenir. She sows a great deal, and everything she does is beautiful, he said, stroking one of the ties, fashioned of wine-coloured silk and embroidered in thin gold thread. The simple words, the tangle of the exotic things lying on the table, in that moment set the whole world between us. I saw him as alien, far removed and unknowable. I realized how utterly transplanted he must be, moving as he did in a country whose ideals, manners, and customs must appear at times grotesquely fantastic to him. How queer we must seem to you, I exclaimed, impulsively lifting a solid, fat little idol in my hand. Queer? Not at all, but wonderfully interesting in everything. You see, to me it is all one world. Our eyes met for a second, then he offered me a small embroidered Chinese flag. I hesitated looking at the writhing, fire-breathing dragon done in many-coloured silks. Again the old prejudice swept over me. I was about to refuse, but I saw in his eyes an expression of hesitating, half-anxious pleading, which touched me. I took the flag, puzzled a trifle over that look I had surprised. Chen King became a frequent visitor at our home in the evenings, making friends with my father and mother with true Chinese deference. I like to remember those times, with all of us sitting around the big table, the shaded lamp casting a clear circle of light on the books and papers, the rest of the room in pleasant dimness. It was during these evenings that Chen King told us about his father, typical Chinese product of his clan and time, who had early perceived the limitations of a too nationalistic point of view, and had planned Western education for his sons, of whom Chen King was the eldest. From his talk I reconstructed a half picture of his home in southern China. It was a large household of brothers and relatives and servants, ruled over by his mother during the prolonged absences of his father, whose business interests lay in a faraway island port. Once he brought a faded photograph of a small boy, formally arrayed in the Chinese Belvets and satins of an earlier period. Myself at age of six, he explained. I examined the picture closely. Why, Mr. Liang, I said in wonder, you are wearing a, wearing a, Q. He smiled, delighted at my confusion. Yes, a very nice Q it was, he declared. Bound with a scarlet silk cord. I remember how it waved in the wind when I flew my kite on the hills. You wore a black Q yourself, Margaret, interposed my mother, her eyes twinkling, shorter than this but often tied with her red silk ribbon. You see, we had that in common, at least, said Chen King. And he flashed a grateful smile at mother. There was a well-established friendship between my kindly understanding mother and Chen King, while my feeling for him was still uncertain. Yet, in spite of all these reasons for close sympathy with Chen King, I felt toward him at times something amounting almost to dislike. Against such states of mind my personal sense of justice, a trait I had directly from my scotch inheritance, instantly rebelled. I was careful in no way to reveal my feelings, though I probably should have done so had I even remotely realized that friendship was verging upon love. As it was I had an ideal of genuine comradeship of a pleasant interlude destined to end with our college days. Toward the end of the winter as our acquaintance advanced there came to me a series of those revulsions. I assured myself that so ephemeral a relation, as ours must be, was hardly worth the time I was giving to it. I remembered that fine as Chen King was, he belonged to the Chinese race. I decided to put an end to the entire episode at once. The way in which I carried out this plan was unnecessarily abrupt. I avoided him, unmistakably, going to class and returning home by a roundabout way, and refusing to see him either in class or on the campus. Then one afternoon at the end of two weeks he was waiting for me before the main door of College Hall. I did not speak. He joined me without a word and walked in silence to the campus edge. I turned suddenly toward a side street. Go that way if you like, I said rudely. I have an errand this way. He came with me. I wish to talk with you, he said, with an oddly restrained, patient tone of weariness. Our eyes met and I saw in his a gentle and touching determination to understand and be understood, which would have been more significant to me if I had been less engrossed in my own emotions. Why do you wish to end our friendship, he asked, quietly with his characteristic frankness? I, because I thought it was best, I stammered, completely disarmed. It is never best to give up a friendship, he said. But it happens that our friendship may end soon, after all. It is possible I shall return to China. Today I received a cablegram from my father saying my mother is dangerously ill. I shall know within a day or so whether I am to go or to stay. Human sympathy triumphed over race prejudice. Come home with me, I said, and let mother talk to you. She always knows what to say. Another cablegram two days later brought the good news of his mother's improvement. Chang King's anxiety during those two days rung me. He said nothing but his face was strained and lined. He walked and we talked a good deal of other things. And he gave me definite outlines of his life plan, as he called it. He regarded the diplomatic service of his country as his final goal. But on the way to it he wished to take part in constructive teaching and sociological work in China. He was keenly enthusiastic about the ancient arts and natural beauties of China and venerated many of her old customs. I hope introducing modern education will not destroy the beauty of the East, he told me. But he was solidly convinced of the need for new ideas in all the Orient. I began to see his country through new eyes. We were soon going about together a great deal. I remember many happy parties on the lantern-lighted campus, many field days and tennis matches, all the innocent freedom of college life that we enjoyed together. I was rather remote in my personal friendships and very little was said to me regarding my association with the Chinese student. But now I began to hear small murmurs, a vague hum of discussion and to observe an interested watching of us by the students and townspeople. I could not help seeing that curious glances followed us when we entered a tearoom or concert hall together. Several friends of my mothers spoke disapprovingly to her of the matter. What if they should fall in love? Mary asked one conventional-minded old lady. But my mother was born without prejudices and never sees boundary lines or nationalities. She was infinitely tactful and kind. I now know that she was rather uneasy, for she felt that marriage is a difficult enough relation when each person knows the other's heritage and formulas. But she said nothing to make me self-conscious, not even repeating the remarks of her acquaintances until long afterward. However I heard comments from other sources which irritated me a trifle and had the perfectly natural effect of stimulating my loyalty to Chengqing and arousing at times a yearning tenderness to shield him from injustice. At this time we tentatively expressed our views on intermarriage. We were sitting on the porch late one afternoon. I believe marriage between alien races is a mistake, I said, in a decisive way I cultivated at that time. It is better to marry one's own kind. No doubt there are fewer difficulties, he answered without conviction. It dissolves so much a personal problem. Marriages between Americans do not seem to be always successful. I flared, we hear only of the unhappy ones I retorted. But there are many, many unhappy ones then, he returned gently. I wonder if unhappy marriage in all countries is not due to selfishness and lack of love and too unwillingness to compromise on unimportant differences. We could not possibly quarrel here and our talk proceeded amiably. My thoughts at dinner that night seem very amusing to me as I recall them now. Chengqing was so like one of us as we sat at the table together that I found myself wondering if it was true that a Chinese wife did not eat at the same table with her husband. If she actually did wait upon him and obey him without question in everything, if Chengqing would return to China soon and there become an insufferable autocratic eastern husband. The thought oppressed me unbearably. Since Chengqing was leaving next day on a summer vacation trip this was a farewell dinner. He insisted on helping me with the dishes afterward for ours was a simple household and we usually had no maid. We were very merry over the task. In China he confided as he stacked the saucers, the lot of women is much easier. They have servants for everything of this kind. I know an English woman who married a Chinese and she afterward taught in a college for the sake of something to do. She did quite right, I said. Idleness is not good for anyone. Chinese wives are not idle, he answered gravely. They have many duties for everyone in their household. At this he turned his eyes upon me with an intent inner look. Because I was impressed I chose to be flippant. If I obstruct your view I will move, I said. It would do no good, he answered. You are always there, wherever I want to look. Later he was writing his name in Chinese characters on a photograph he had given my mother. I stood beside him. He dropped the pen, turned to me and took both my hands in his own. He bent toward me and I drew away shaking my head decisively. I wrenched one hand free and the kiss he meant for my lips reached my fingers instead. I was overwhelmed with a sense of invasion. We quarreled but without bitterness or real anger. I was simply convinced that since love was not for us we were bound by all ethics to keep our relations in the outward seeming of friendship. For a moment I felt that one of my ideals had been rudely shattered. Oh! but you have mistaken me, he declared, earnestly refusing to release my hand. Kisses are not for friendship, I managed to say. I'm sorry, he confessed, but I saw in his eyes that he regretted my misunderstanding of him, nothing more. During his summer travels he wrote me many letters. I had time to think, and in my thoughts I admitted that to be a friend to Chengqing was better than to have the love of anyone else in the world. When he returned we wandered together one evening down to the campus and sat on a stone bench in the moon shade of a tall tree. I had overheard a remark tinged with race prejudice that had awakened again in my heart that brooding maternal tenderness, and when Chengqing's eyes pleaded wistfully I gave him, as a sacrificial offering, the kiss before denied. That fall he transferred for a year to a New England University. He told me long afterward that it was so that absence might teach me to know my own heart. I loved him now and admitted it to myself with bitter honesty. But all fulfilment of love seemed so hopeless and remote, the chasm fixed between our races, seemed so impassable that I gave up in my heart and put away his letters as they came, smiling with affected youthful cynicism at the memory of that kiss, which could mean nothing more to us than a sweet and troubled recollection. He came back unexpectedly at the end of the college term. There was an indescribably hopeful, anxious look in his eyes as he took my hands. My first sight of his face, grown older and graver in those long months, brought a shock of poignant happiness very near to tears. Off-guard we met as lovers, with all antagonisms momentarily swept away, all pretenses forgotten. I went to his arms as my one sure haven. For this hour love made everything simple and happy. My mother and father were astonished when we told them of our intention to marry. With gentle wisdom mother suggested that we allow ourselves a year of engagement, in order to be sure, as she expressed it. We were very sure, but we consented. Chen Qing wrote at once to his people in South China telling of his engagement. For me he had one important explanation made in his frank, straightforward way. In China, he told me, it is usual for parents to arrange their children's marriages, often years in advance. When I was very young it was generally understood that I would later marry the daughter of my father's good friend, three years younger than I. There was no formal betrothal, and when I left home to study I asked my father not to make any definite plans for my marriage until my return. The subject has never been mentioned since, and I don't know what his ideas are now, but they can make no difference with us. You understand that, Margaret dear? Again I felt myself in spiritual collision with unknown forces and wondered at his calmness in opposing the claims of his heredity. His family replied to his letter with the cable-gram forbidding the marriage. I had never seriously expected any other decision. A letter followed, conciliatory in tone, in which his father explained that since Chiang King's foreign education was nearly completed, arrangements had been made for his marriage to Miss Li Ying, immediately upon his return home. He gave a charming description of his bride whom Chiang King had not seen for twelve years. She was, he said, young and modest and kind, she was beautiful and wealthy, and moreover had been given a modern education in order to fit her for the position of wife to an advanced Chinese. The match was greatly desired by both families. In conclusion the letter urgently requested that Chiang King would not make it impossible for his father to fulfill the contract he had entered into with a friend, and very gently intimated that by so doing he would forfeit all right to further consideration. There were other letters. An American friend, a missionary wrote, oh very tactfully, of the difficulties he would have in keeping an American wife happy in the Orient. A Chinese cousin discussed at length the sorrows of a foreign daughter-in-law would bring into his house. The bitterness of having in the family an alien and stubborn woman who would be unwilling to give his parents the honor due them, or to render them the service they would expect of their son's wife. Many letters of this kind came in a group. There was a hopeless tone of finality, a solid clan consciousness in those letters that frightened me a little. I was uneasy, uncertain. I had found no irreconcilable elements in our minds, for I was very conservative west, and he was very liberal east. But here were represented the people with whom his life must be spent, and the social background against which it must harmoniously unfold. I felt with terrific force that it was not Chang King, but Chang King's traditions and ancestors, his tremendous racial past, that I must reckon with. Also I did not wish to stand in the way of his future. I doubt if I could have found courage to marry Chang King if I had then realized the importance, especially in diplomatic and political circles, of clan and family influence in China. But he gave it up so freely, with such assured and unregretful cheerfulness that I could not but share his mood. In these calm, logical, impersonal family letters which Chang King translated for me, there was a strain of sinister philosophy that chilled me as I read. The letters dealt entirely with his duty in many phases, to his parents, to his ancestors, to his country, to his own future. Nothing of love. Only one relative, a cousin, mentioned it at all, and in this wise. You are young now, and to youth love seems of great importance, but as age replaces youth, you will find that love runs away like water. That is not true, Chang King, I said, with solemn conviction. Love is greater than life or age. It lives beyond death. It is love that makes eternity. At this time Chang King did not quite comprehend my mystical interpretation of love, but he answered very happily. To have you for my wife is worth everything else the world can offer. Chang King continued to write to his family briefly and respectfully, declining to be influenced in any way. Replies came at lengthening intervals and then ceased. There was no open breach, no violent tearing asunder of bonds. Courteously quite gently the hands of his people were removed, and he stood alone. But surely your mother will not give you up? I exclaimed one day when it dawned on me that not one message had she sent in all the correspondence. Not in her dear heart, he said, with unshaken faith, but of course she will not write to me if my father disapproves. But a mother, Chang King, I protested, surely her feelings come first always. Chang King's tone was patient after the manner of one who has explained an obvious fact many times. In China he reminded me again. The family comes always before the individual. But with you and me, Margaret, beloved, love has first importance. His never-failing insistence upon viewing ours as an individual instance, not to be judged by any ordinary standards, was a source of great strength to me always. During the short period that followed before our marriage we tiffed a few times in the most conventional manner, with fits of jealousy that had no foundation, small distrusts that on my part were merely efforts to uphold what I considered my proper feminine pride, and on his were often failures to discount this characteristic temper of mine, only somehow there was never any ranker in our quarrels. Not once would we deny our love for each other. So we planned to be married immediately. There were no reasons why we should delay further. That is to say none but practical reasons, and what have they to do with young people in love. It is a little late for us to begin practical thinking, said Chang King cheerfully, when we discussed ways and means. But we might as well make the experiment. Chang King was no longer merely a student with a generous allowance from a wealthy father. On his own resources, with his education not completed, he was about to acquire a foreign wife and to face an untried world. We were strangely light-hearted about all this. Chang King had regularly put by more than half of his allowance since coming to America. I meant to be a teacher of languages, economically independent if circumstances required such aid for a man beginning a career. Our plans were soon completed. At the end of another term, which we would finish together, Chang King would be graduated, and then, after a year of practice in his profession, he would return to China, there to begin his life work. I was to follow later. Nothing could have been more delightfully simple so far as we could see. A few days later we were married in my mother's house by an Anglican clergyman. Of course you will live here with us until you go to China, my parents had said. We want our children with us, if you can be happy here. This seemed a very natural arrangement to Chang King, accustomed as he was to family life. But I was apprehensive. The popular Western idea that people cannot be friends if they are related by law was heavy on my mind. I did not expect any drastic readjustment of temperament between my Chinese husband and me, but I did look forward somewhat timorously to a trying period of small complications due to differences in domestic customs and the routine of daily living. I need not have worried a moment. A wonderful spirit of family cooperation was an important part of Chang King's Oriental heritage. From the day of our wedding he took his place with charming ease and naturalness as a member of the household. The affection that existed between my husband and my parents simplified that phase of our relation perfectly, and left us free to adjust ourselves to each other and the world, though the latter we took very little into account. Until I met Chang King, the idea of being conspicuous was unendurable to me. But when I early perceived that to appear with him anywhere was to invite the gaze of the curious, I discovered with surprise that it mattered not at all. I was very proud of my husband and loved to go about with him. We were happy from the beginning. Discovering life together proved a splendid adventure which renewed itself daily. The deep affection and tenderness between us created subtle comprehensions, too delicate to be put into words. A quick look interchanged during a pause in talk would often convey a complete thought. I always felt that Chang King had acuter perceptions, more reserved and more imagination than I. Also he was meticulous, as I was not, in regard to small amenities. I had always been used to having my own way without causing discomfort to anyone else, but I found that I could not speak carelessly or act thoughtlessly without the risk of violating his sense of the fitness of things. My greatest difficulty in the first few months of our marriage came from my constant effort to adjust my mode of thought and action to meet a highly trained and critical temperament to whom the second bests of association, spiritual or mental or material, were not acceptable. Yet if he exacted much he gave more. In everything he had a generosity so sincere and spontaneous that it aroused a like quality in me. I am in many ways the elemental type of woman requiring I know a certain measure of domination and love. It was imperative that I respect my husband and it pleased me to discover in our several slight domestic crises that his was far the stronger will. I had taken my vow to obey having specified that the word was not to be omitted from the marriage ceremony. How I should have kept it under a tyrannical will I do not know, for Chengqing was not a domestic dictator. He took it for granted that we were partners and equals in our own departments of life. He trusted my judgment in the handling of my share of our affairs and in later years often came to me for advice in his own. Nevertheless morally the balance of power was in his hands and I was glad to leave it there. Often our disagreements would end in laughter because each one of us would give way gradually from the position first assumed until we had almost changed sides in the discussion. This happened again and again. From the very beginning I saw clearly by some grace the point at which Chengqing's Oriental mind and Occidental education came into the keenest conflict. My attitude toward other men and their attitude toward me. He was never meanly jealous, so suspicious, but there was in him that unconquerable eastern sense of exclusiveness in love, that cherishing of personal possession so incomprehensible to the average Western imagination. I had planned to instruct a young man in French during the summer months as a part of my vacation work and I casually announced my intention to Chengqing. He opposed it at once, I thought unfairly. I was a great while persuading him to admit his real reasons for objecting. Finally I said somewhat at random, if my pupil were a girl you would not care. You have enough work as it is he persisted, but without firmness and his eyes flickered away from mine. I laughed a little. He turned to me a face so distressed that my smile died suddenly. Oh, don't laugh, he said painfully in earnest. You must keep in mind what you are to me. I cannot be different. I am sorry. I gave up my harmless young pupil and said nothing more. From that moment I began to form my entire code of conduct where men were concerned on a rigidly impersonal and formal basis. It was not difficult for my first and only affection was centered in my husband and the impulse to coca-tree was foreign to my nature. My husband's determination to leave my individuality untrammeled was sometimes overborn in small ways that delighted me by his innate sense of fitness. We played tennis and he played excellently. One day as we left the courts he said to me, tennis just isn't your game, Margaret. Your dignity is always getting in the way of your drive. I don't want you to give up your dignity. It is too much of you, but you might leave tennis alone and try archery. I am sure that is more suited to your type. The amused obedience with which I took his suggestion soon became enthusiasm for the new sport. To me marriage has always seemed the most mystic and important of human relations involving at times all the rest and particularly parenthood. I am a born mother to whom the idea of marriage without children is unthinkable. Since I put away my dolls dream-children had taken their place in the background of my fancy. I saw them vaguely at first, but with the coming of love I knew quite clearly how they would look. Now that I had married Chang-king I should have liked a child at once as a sureer bond between us and as a source of comfort for myself when he should be making his start in China. I knew that he loved children for on several occasions I had deliberately put a tiny neighbor in his way and had taken note of his warm friendliness and gentleness to the wee thing. But fearing that he would be unwilling to accept new responsibility while our affairs were still unsettled I put aside my desire for a child, though my loved books were growing strangely irksome. I did not know that my husband shared the usual foreign belief that the American woman is an unwilling mother. Then one day he went to call on a friend of his, a Chinese student whose wife and little son were with him. I saw the Chinese baby he told me with boyish eagerness. He is going to have a little brother soon. Lucky baby! Lucky parents I corrected him and sighed enviously. Chang King looked at me, the wonder on his face growing into a delighted smile. Do you mean it, Margaret? he asked incredulously. Then we talked long and earnestly of our children. To Chang King's old world mind children should follow marriage as naturally as fruit the blossom, and his happiness in discovering that my ideals were exactly his own brought us to another plane of understanding and contentment with each other. Besides, he explained, a grandchild would do much to reconcile his parents to our marriage. Happily when the school term was over I put aside my books for a needle. I had always been fond of sewing but never had I found such fascinating work as the making of those tiny garments of silk and flannel and lawn. My practical mother protested against so much embroidering, but my husband only smiled as he rummaged gently through the basket of small sewing. You are a real Chinese wife after all, he would say. A Chinese wife sows and embroiders a great deal. She even makes shoes for the family. Shoes, Chang King? Shoes no less. To make shoes beautifully is a fine art. And a Chinese woman takes pride in excelling at it. She is proud of her feet and makes all her own slippers. Then he would tell me stories of his childhood and recall memories of the closed garden in his old home, where he played at Battle Door with a tiny girl, while her mother and his mother sat together embroidering and talking in low tones. The two young mothers were friends and were planning for the marriage of their son and daughter, which would strengthen the friendship into a family bond. I took great interest in this little girl who flitted through Chang King's stories like a brilliant butterfly seen through a mist. Her name was Li Ying, and she was only three years old when she ran, with her little feet still unbound, through those sweetly remembered green gardens of his childhood. Somewhere now she was sitting, her lily feet meekly crossed, embroidering shoes, waiting until her father should betroth her to another youth. When Chang King showed me a portrait of himself taken in a group with his mother and father when he was eight years old, I examined very thoughtfully the esterally beautiful face of the woman who had brought him into life. She sat on one side of the carved blackwood table, her narrow, paneled skirt was raised a trifle to show her amazingly tiny feet. On the other side of the table sat Chang King's father, an irreconcilably stern and autocratic-looking man, magnificently garbed in the old style. Beside him stood a small solemn boy, wearing a round cap, his cue still bound, he told me, with a red cord, his hands lost in the long velvet sleeves that reached almost to his knees. I put a finger on the head of this boy. I hope our son will look exactly like him, I said. At last the hoped-for son was born and laid in my arms. He was swaddled and powdered and new, and he wept for obscure reasons. But my husband and I smiled joyfully at the delicious, incredible resemblance of that tiny face to his own. Chang King looked at him a long time, a quizzical, happy smile in the corners of his mouth. Then he kissed me very gently and said, He's a real Liang baby, Margaret, are you glad? I answered that I was glad, as I had been for everything love had brought to me. Our plans progressed favourably, and when our son Wilfred was five months old, Chang King returned to China. I told him good-bye in the way I knew it please him most, calmly and without tears. But when it came to the last moment, I felt unable to let him go. Mutely I clung to him, the baby on my arm between us. It won't be for long this, he assured me. We shall all be together at home very soon. You are brave and dear and true, Margaret. You shall never be made sorry. Be patient. His first letters told of his new work in one of the older colleges for which Shanghai is famous. He also began his practice of law in an official capacity. His first step toward the diplomatic service had been taken. At the end of four months I received his summons, and went about making ready for the journey to China with my young son. My life work was to help my husband in making a home. His life work was in China. The conclusion was so obvious that neither I, nor my parents, had ever questioned it. But now that the moment had come, the friends of the family were very much excited. They asked strange questions. Are you really going? How can you leave your mother? How can you give up beautiful America? Aren't you afraid to go to China? I answered as patiently and reasonably as I could. They worried me very much. Of China itself I had no clear conception, in spite of Changqing's letters, for though my old prejudice had passed away, yet still I saw all the country only as a background for my husband's face. I followed Changqing's minute instructions concerning travelling arrangements, and Wilfred and I had a pleasant voyage. Early one morning I looked through the porthole and saw about me the murky waters of the Yangtze, alive with native craft, while dimly through the mist loomed the fortifications of Wuxing. Already the tender was waiting and soon we were aboard, moving rapidly up the mouth of the river. The mist cleared, green banks arose on each side, and through distant trees gleamed red brick buildings, like any at home, side by side with the white plastered walls, and tip-tilted roofs of China. In that long ride, Shanghai grew upon me gradually, a curious mixture of the known and the unknown, tantalizing me with the feeling that I had seen all this before, and ought to remember it better. In the water about me, steamer, launch, and battleship mingled with native junk, river barge and houseboat. Suddenly, in the waiting group on the customs jetty, I saw my husband. In another moment we had drawn alongside the wharf, and he was in the tender, beside me, greeting me in the formally courteous manner he deemed suited to public occasions. Taking Wilfred in his arms, he drew me up the steps and to a waiting carriage. Here again I saw my husband and my wife. Again was the confused mingling of the strange and the familiar, clanging tram cars, honking automobiles, smooth rolling rickshaws, creaking wheelbarrows, and lumbering man-drawn trucks. Dark coolly faces under wide straw hats, gently bred features beneath pith helmets, black bearded countenances below huge gay turbines, a bewildering jumble of alien and English speech. Even in Shang King I founded. He was wearing American dress, his face had not changed, the tones of his voice were the same, but he was speaking Chinese and his directions to the mafu were to me a meaningless succession of sounds. But when he was beside me in the carriage and the horses had started, he turned suddenly and smiled straight into my eyes. Then Shanghai, Borneo or the North Pole, all would have been one to me. I asked no questions, I was with my husband and child, driving rapidly toward the home prepared for me. I had come home to China. In Shanghai. My first impressions of Shanghai are a blur. My husband and I drove rapidly along the boond, along Garden Bridge, which might have been any bridge in America. Past Astor House, which was very like any American hotel, and then along the Suqiao Creek, which could be only in China. On North Sichuan Road, we stopped at a Lee, or Terrace, of newly built houses in the style called Semi-Foreign. This Lee, which was in the international settlement, was very bright and clean. It opened upon the main thoroughfare. The heavy walls of bright red brick were interrupted at intervals by black doors bearing brass name-plates. At one of these, my husband stopped and touched a very American-looking push-button. A bell trilled within, and the door was opened by a smiling boy in a long blue cotton gown. We crossed a small courtyard bright with flowers and vines, and coming to the main entrance, stepped directly into a large square room. It was cool, immaculate, and restful. The matting-covered floors, the skillfully arranged tables, chairs, and sofa. The straight hangings of green and white, threaded with gold, were exactly what I should have wished to choose for myself. I was pleasantly surprised by the gas chandelier with its shades of green and golden white. A dark green gas radiator along one wall suggested that Shanghai was not always so warm as then. It was a very modest, little home, befitting a man with his own way to make, Chan King explained, as he led me through the rooms for a hasty survey. When Wilfred was surrendered to his amah, a fresh-cheeked, young woman in stiffly starched blue coat, white trousers and apron, while we made ready for a tiffin engagement with Chinese friends of Chan King's. After a short rickshaw ride, novel and delightful to me, we turned from the main road into another series of terraces and entered a real Chinese household. The host and hostess, who had both been in America and spoke excellent English, were very cordial in their welcome. I felt more at home than I had believed could be possible. Tiffin was served in the Chinese fashion. The guests seated at a great round table with the dishes of meat, fish and vegetables placed in the center, so that each one could help himself as he chose. Individual bowls of rice, small plates, chopsticks and spoons were at each plate. Set at intervals were small shallow dishes containing soy, mustard or ketchup, and also roasted melon seeds and almonds. When my hostess, who had thoughtfully rounded out her delicious Chinese menu with bread and butter and velvety ice cream, as thoughtfully produced a silver knife and fork for me, my husband explained that I was rather deft in the use of chopsticks. Though he had taught me, during the early days of our marriage, to use a slender ivory pair that he possessed, I was now very nervous. But I felt obliged to prove his delighted assertion, so my social conformity as a Chinese wife began there, before a friendly and amused audience, who assured me that I did very well. On the way home, Chan King said, Will this be difficult for you, Margaret? Chopsticks, I asked Gailey, well enough knowing that he did not mean chopsticks. No, I like them. I mean everything, he said, very gravely, China, customs, people, home sickness, everything. You will see whether you haven't married a true oriental, I answered him, as for home sickness, why, Chan King, I am at home. The most important thing at first, materially speaking, was that Chan King must make his own way without help of any sort, and for the upper class Chinese this is very difficult. He was teaching advanced English in one of the largest colleges in Shanghai, maintaining illegal practice, and giving lectures on international law. He was glad to be at home again, filled with enthusiasm for his work, hopeful as the young returned students always are at first, and through sheer inability to limit his endeavors, working beyond his strength. Our happiness at being together again made all things seem possible. From its fragmentary beginnings in America, we gathered again into our hands the life we expected to make so full and rich. My part, I recognized, was to be a genuinely old-fashioned wife, the role I was best fitted for, and the one most helpful to Chan King. And I began by running my Chinese household with minute attention to providing for his comfort in small ways that he liked, and never failed to appreciate. Our two-story house consisted of two big rooms downstairs, and sleeping apartments, and a tiny roof garden upstairs. In this roof garden I spent most of my time, and there Wilfred and his Amaw passed many afternoons. It was a pleasant sunny place, furnished with painted steamer-chairs, rugs, and blooming plants in pottery jars. At the back, rather removed from the main part of the house, were the kitchen, servant's quarters, and an open-air laundry. We were really very practical and modern and comfortable. Our kitchen provided for an admirable compromise between old and new methods. It had an English gas range and a Chinese one. But the proper Chinese atmosphere was preserved by three well-trained servants who called themselves A'ching, A'ling, and A'po. Most Shanghai servants are simply called Boy or Amaw or Cooley, but ours chose those names as distinctive for servants there, as James and Bridget are with us. A'ching did most of the housework and the running of errands. A'ling did the marketing and cooking, giving us a pleasantly varied succession of Chinese and foreign dishes. A'po, the Amaw, looked after Wilfred and attended to my personal wants. From the first I was fond of A'po, with her finely formed intelligent features, her soft voice and gentle unhurried manner. She had served in American mistress before coming to me, but showed a surprising willingness to adopt my particular way of doing things, whether in making beds, in keeping my clothes in order, or in entertaining Wilfred. On the other hand, A'ching, elderly, grave, and full of responsibility, was very partial to his accustomed way of arranging furniture, and of washing windows and floors. If left to himself he would dust odd nooks and corners faithfully, but if I made any formal inspection of his labours he would invariably slight them, to intimate that I should not be suspicious, as a friend explained. A'form of logic that I found highly amusing. A'ling, aside from his culinary ability, was chiefly interesting because his eyes were really oblique, as Chinese eyes are supposed to be, and usually are not, and because his hair really curled, as Chinese hair is never supposed to do, and does occasionally. For a young pair bent on thrift we may have seemed very extravagant indeed. In similar circumstances in America I should probably have thought it extravagant, to have even one servant. But this household was a very small one for China, and on our modest income we maintained it with a satisfactory margin. Chan King was helpful and showed great tact and understanding in getting our establishment under way. I would not confess to my utter bewilderment in trying to manage servants who did not understand half of what I said to them. I think he became aware that I was holding on rather hard at times during those first months, and he never failed me. In turn I helped him revise his papers in the evenings and assisted him with his letters, and he used to call me his secretary. We discovered during that first year in China that we had formed a true partnership. Our social life was very pleasant. We entertained a great deal in a simple way. We belonged to a club or two and kept in close touch with the work of the returned students who have become an important factor in the national life. Though wishing to conserve what is best in the civilization of China, they are bringing Western ideas to bear upon the solution of political, sociological, and economic problems. Many of these students, as well as other interesting people, both Chinese and foreign, gathered at our house for dinners and teas. There was a veteran of the customs service, a portly gentleman with bristling white mustache, who had been one of the first group of government students sent to America 50 years before. He told interesting stories of the trials and joys of those early days, and humorously lamented the fact that real apple pie was not to be obtained in China. There was a distinguished editor of English publications, a tall spare figure whose very quietness suggested reserves of mental power. With him often was a short energetic man in early maturity, a farsighted educator and convincing orator. I remember a lively discussion opened up by these two concerning the need for a Chinese magazine devoted to the interests of the modern woman of China, an early dream which is now being fulfilled. There was a retired member of parliament with an unfailing zeal for political discussion, who has since returned to the service of his government. Also a smiling young man who went about persuading old China of her need for progress, but who could, on occasion, put aside his dignity to indulge a talent for diverting bits of comedy. There was the Chinese American son of a former diplomat, who, born in America and coming to China as a grown man, seemed definitely to recognize his kinship with the land of his fathers, a fact that Chan King and I found interesting for its possible bearing on the future of our own sons. Naturally, most of our friends were the younger modern folk, who were loosening the ancient bonds of formality in their daily lives. But many of the older and more conservative people also used to come to our evening gatherings, where my husband and I received side by side. As I came to know the Chinese, I was delighted with their social deafness. They stress grace of manner and courtesy as the foundations of all social life. I was pleasantly impressed by the measure of deference that they showed to wives, daughters, sisters, and friends, so different from the contempt that western imagination supposes to be their invariable share. Occasionally I noticed a husband carefully translating that his wife might fully enjoy the conversation. Many of the women, however, spoke English excellently. All our receptions and dinners were delightfully free and full of good talk. The Chinese have so beautifully the gift of saying profound things lightly. They can think deeply without being heavy and pedantic. I remember the first dinner party I attended in Shanghai. It was rather a grand affair, with many guests. All Chinese save me. And I'm almost Chinese, I said to my husband. The men and women all sat together around one great table in excellent humor with each other, and the talk was very gay. A little Chinese woman whom I knew rather well said to me later, and think of it, only last year in this house we should have been at separate tables. When I asked her to explain, she said that once men did not bring their guests to their homes at all. Then they brought them but entertained them in the men's side of the house. Later they admitted women to dine in the same room, but at separate tables. And now here we are, chatting and dining together quite in western fashion. I like this much better, the little lady decided. I was glad to see that all of them wore Chinese dress, for it is most impressively beautiful. I wore my first jacket and plated skirt that night, a combination of pale green and black satin. And now and then I would see Chen Qing's eyes turned upon me with a look I best loved to see there, a clear warm affection shining in them, a certain steady glow of expression that had love and friendship and understanding in it. I think the sight of me in the dress of his country confirmed in his mind my declaration that I loved China, that I wanted to be a real Chinese wife. After this though for certain occasions the American fashion seemed more appropriate. I wore Chinese dress a great deal. I remember a day when Dr. Wu Ting Fang came to dinner and as he bowed to me obviously took note of my garb. He looked at me very keenly for a moment as if he meant to ask a serious question. Then he said in his abrupt manner, You are happy in that dress? Indeed I am, I answered. You like it better than you like American clothes, he persisted. I nodded firmly, smiling and catching my husband's eye. Then where it always said the doctor, with the pontifical lifting of his fingers. Oddly enough my husband did not care for the native feminine fashion of trousers and never permitted me to wear them. I considered them very graceful and comfortable, but gladly adopted the severely plain skirts with the plates at the sides. I had put on China to wear it always in my heart and mind and thought only of my husband, his work and his people. In the beginning I should have been perfectly content to remain cloistered, to meet no one save a few woman friends, to go nowhere. Life flowed by me so evenly that I was happy to drift with it, filled with dreams. The noises of hurrying, half modernized Shanghai reached me but vaguely, where the floors were spread with white matting and the walls were hung with symbolic panels. The click of the pony's feet on the pavement, the thud of the rickshaw coolly's heels as they drew their noiseless rubber-tired vehicles, the strident scream of the automobile horns, the strange long cries of the street vendors, all came to me muffled as though through many curtains that sheltered me from the world. But my husband insisted that I go about with him everywhere that he felt we should go, that I help him entertain, that I meet and mingle with many people, both foreign and Chinese. He was always ready to advise me on social matters, a more difficult undertaking than might be supposed. I have already spoken of the many gradations in the meeting of East and West. These alone are confusing enough, and there are further complexities due to the fact that in the two civilizations the fine points of etiquette are oftenly entirely at variance. A single example will suffice. The custom of serving a guest as soon as seated with some form of refreshment. In the very conservative Chinese household, if the visitor even touches the cup of tea placed beside him on a small table, he is guilty of a gross breach of good manners. In the ultra-modern household he must drink the iced tea summer beverage or the piping hot winter drink to avoid giving offence. Then there are the variously modified establishments where he attempts an exact degree of compromise, whether acknowledging the offering merely by a gracious bow, or going further by raising it to the lips for a dainty sip, or being still more liberal and consuming one half the proffered amount. That such situations are often baffling even to young China I have heard it laughingly confessed in many lively discussions. But though occasional errors are inevitable, sincere goodwill is truly valued and seldom misunderstood. Chen King's ability to consider all points of view at once was very helpful to me. But he forgot to warn me that in Shanghai social calling is proper at any hour of the day from nine o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night. I was therefore three days in learning during a short absence of his that early morning and late evening calling was an institution and not an accidental occurrence, as I at first supposed. Finally A Qing gave me a hint. I was in a negligee preparing for a morning of lazy play with Wilfred and hoping there would be no interruptions when A Qing appeared and announced callers. My face must have expressed surprise and a shade of annoyance as it had for three days previously at these summonses. For A Qing hesitated a moment and then vouchsafed what he plainly considered a valuable piece of information. In Shanghai, said A Qing, he all time go to see, all time come to see. He paused, all time, he added firmly and departed. I found this to be literally true and I therefore formed my habits of dress on the assumption that callers demanding the utmost formality of behavior and appearance might be announced at any moment. Needless to say, A Qing's he was pigeon English for she, for my personal visitors were all women. They were of many nationalities, Chinese of course, and also American, Canadian, English, Scotch, and French. With the Chinese women especially I found myself in perfect harmony. Nowhere I believe does sincerity and goodwill meet with a warmer response. They accepted me with a cordiality that was very real and rendered invaluable assistance in my initiation into the new life. They took me calling, shopping, and marketing until Shanghai ceased to be a bewildering maze of crowded thoroughfares. They helped me to understand the complexities of Chinese currency. They explained the intricate points of fashion and dress and recommended skillful tailors. From the first we were deeply interested in the meeting and blending of east and west that went on about us everywhere in every field of endeavor. We found unique opportunity for fresh impressions in the second far eastern Olympics held at Shanghai that spring. In the presence of many thousand spectators, China, the Philippines, and Japan strove for supremacy and athletic prowess. The affair was managed entirely by Chinese, and during most of the contests my husband was busy on the grounds in official capacity. I sat in the grandstand with Chinese woman friends, some of whom were returned students, and the rousing cheers, the whole hearted enthusiasm brought to us vivid memories of college days in America. The evenings were filled with receptions and garden parties in honor of the visitors. Of course our pleasure in the whole affair was immeasurably heightened by China's well-earned triumph. As the months passed, Chen King's high-hearted enthusiasm, his dauntless will to carry through great work in the education of young China, flagged to some degree, from terrible disillusionment. This is the problem all returned students have sooner or later to face and conquer. They come home brimming with hope and filled with aspirations towards their country's betterment, and gradually they are forced to acknowledge one enormous fact, that China has been her glorious grim old self for too many centuries. Her feet are sunk too deeply in the earth of her ancient traditions to be uprooted by one generation of youth, or two, or three, or a hundred. Chen King chafed and worried and worked too hard. Strangely enough, he grew homesick for America, though I did not. America strides like a young boy, and China creeps like an old woman, he said bitterly one day after attending a meeting of the college board, where his modern ideas of education had suffered a defeat at the hands of the reactionary body. But China is a wise, wise old woman, I replied gently, and very often during this time I would uphold the traditions of the East, the ways of the Western world. My husband underwent disappointments, irritations and trials that would have been unendurable in a less securely poised nature. As it was, he suffered so in the great things that he had little patience for the small ones, and I often found him sudden of a temper, with a quick asperity of tone and finality of judgment that showed me clearly how great a strain he was under. But with us there was always love, and Chen King was very careful to make me understand, even in the midst of small disappointments and vexations, that these things were the universal human annoyances that had nothing to do with regrets or a sense of alienation. I broke into tears one day when a sharp little scene occurred over nothing at all. Oh, Margaret, my dearest, he said, taking me in his arms, these moods mean nothing between us when we love each other so. Don't take them seriously. What could destroy our happiness now? In spite of the worldwide difference in our race and upbringing, whatever difficulties of temperamental adaptation we had to meet were merely such as must be faced by any husband and wife in any land. Yet Chen King's personal fascination for me, his never-failing appeal to my imagination, was definitely founded on the Oriental quality in him. I found throughout the years, in every phase of our relation, a constant, irresistible, always recurring thrill in the idea that we were not of the same race or civilization. Once when I confessed this fact to him, he said, Do you love me only because I am Chinese? No, I think I should have loved you no matter what race you came of, but how can I know? I like to feel that you love the essential me. Yes, but the essential you is Chinese. He thought a moment. Chinese, yes, but a most respectable member of the Dutch Reformed Church of America. I won't let that injure you in my eyes, I assured him, laughing. I was of the Anglican faith, and we often referred to the strange mixture of nationalities in our creeds. My husband, in spite of his firm faith, was not of a deeply religious mind, and of the two I was much more mystical in my beliefs. Love, divine and human had come to mean everything to me, in a literal and spiritual sense. I believed obscurely at first, but with increasing surety and faith as time went on. That human love also was not of time only, but of eternity as well, and when I found that Chan King did not share this belief, I felt for the only time in all my marriage alien to him, shut out by an impalpable veil from his profoundest inner life, which I wished passionately to share in everything. The discovery came hand in hand with our first shadow. Only the shadow of a shadow, I might call it, so vague at the beginning that we could not feel more than an uneasiness. Chan King fell ill, though not seriously, and he recovered quickly. But on the up-curve of returning health he never quite regained the old plane of physical well-being. Signs, oh the very smallest of signs, warned us of a grave, slow-breaking down of his system under thisis. We could not quite believe it. His physician advised him to ease the strain of work as much as he could. We talked together in the early hours of many nights. Chan King always insisting that his depression was the result of temporary fatigue, sure to pass away within a few weeks repose in the open air of the hills. It was during this time that I spoke to him of the everlastingness of love and my faith in a life farther on. Where could death take one of us that the other could not follow? I asked him in strange triumph. His eyes held mine a long minute. His face was very sad. I am not sure of that. I have no idea of what we shall be to one another in another life. I am only sure that we are all things to each other now. An inexpressible sense of fear took hold of me. Chan King seemed at once terribly alien and removed. I could not speak for I had the feeling of calling in a strange language across a great chasm. I said nothing for fear of distressing him, but he must have sensed my disquietude, for he took my hands and held them to his face and let his eyes shine upon me. Don't look like that, he said. We have much time yet to think of eternity. But from the day of this illness the shadow was never once removed from me. Now we were lured by the residential charms of the French concession, with its broad, tree-lined avenues and fresh wide-swept spaces, so we took a new house in a terrace fronting on Avenue Joffrey. We liked our large rooms each with its tiled fireplace, its polished floors laid with chen-sing rugs, its electric lights. There was a grassy lawn with Chinese orchids and a border of palms and magnolias, and just around the corner from us was a public garden, where to Wilfred's delight dozens of children played each day under the care of their respective amaz. Our staff of servants was now increased to five by the addition of a rickshaw coolly and a second amaz. Chan King received shortly after this a letter from his father the first communication he had had from his family since our marriage. It contained an invitation to return home for a visit, since his mother wished very deeply to see him again. I can interpret this in only one way, Margaret, he said in a puzzled tone. It is an offer of reconciliation. That means that they do not know you are with me. Go and see for yourself what it is, I told him, for I would have consented for his sake to a reconciliation on almost any terms. I had seen enough of Chinese family life to understand the powerful bonds of affection and interest that bind the clan together, and I felt in my own heart the cruelty of breaking those between mother and son and brother and brother. I want to tell them about you, Chan King answered, this is my opportunity. Before accepting their invitation Chan King wrote and told them that his wife was with him, and their replies to this proved him right in his first surmise. His family knew he had returned to China and having heard nothing further of his marriage had supposed that it was all over. This was not exactly a surprising conclusion for them to reach, more than one foreign woman has refused to accompany her Chinese husband home. I myself came in contact with an occasional half household in which a Chinese was held in China by his business affairs while his wife waited for him on the other side of the world. Sometimes too she did not wait and the marriage ended in the conventional way, that is in the divorce court. Chan King's people imagined that something of the sort had occurred to him and were quite ready to wipe out old scores and resume the ties of relationship. After having written the initial letter of reconciliation they held to their attitude in a thoroughbred way only amending their welcome a trifle by requesting him to visit them alone. Very tactfully and gently they put it like this. His father was growing old and any sudden change disturbed him. The household had lately been added to by marriage and births and he would find everything very much more comfortable if he should come alone. He went, firmly resolved to change the mind of his family toward me and I too was anxious for them to know that a foreign marriage had not harmed Chan King. During the six weeks of his absence his letters were cheerfully non-committal though he spoke of his happiness in being in his mother's house again. I thought a great deal about that house, the intricate lives of the people in it and their many degrees of kinship and authority. Chan King had told me enough to give me a fairly clear picture of them. I had always admired their ability to sustain difficult relations under the same roof with the utmost good temper and mutual courtesy. Yet I was western enough to feel that Chan King and I knew each other better and had been more free to learn each other thoroughly, alone in our own household, which was growing in quite a Chinese fashion. I expected my second child and looked forward with much hope to the new life for I had always been deeply maternal and wanted several children. But to Chan King and me our love for each other was the greatly important thing in life, the reason for all the rest of our existence. We accepted the fact of birth as naturally as we did the change of seasons. Children were essential to our happiness, but not the dominant essential. We ordered our home for ourselves as two lovers who had elected to pass their life together. Chan King expressed our views thus. The Chinese ideal is that the family is the end, the children the means of keeping it up. In the West the children are the end and the home merely the means of keeping them up. You and I have it perfectly adjusted I think. The home is for all of us and all of us have proper places in it. Chan King returned early one morning and I knew from my first glimpse of his face that his visit had been a fruitful one. I flew to his arms and as he kissed me I saw that his eyes were serene and contented. How is your august mother, my lord? I asked him with a bow. My mother is in good health and wishes to meet her daughter-in-law, he answered, and in spite of the bantering tone I knew he was an earnest. I wanted to know how this change of feeling had come about. When I told them of you, said Chan King, my mother was visibly amazed. I did not understand she kept repeating. I did not understand. And before I left she said to me, if she is all you tell me she is, why do you not bring her here? I did not mention the fact that this was our first invitation, Margaret. Should you like to go, my dearest? I hesitated a moment. Yes, but not yet, I answered. We will not go for a while, Chan King assured me. We talked a great deal about my husband's visit and I gained new light on the actual facts of his estrangement from his family and the enormous significance that his marriage assumed in the minds of his Chinese relatives. I can hardly exaggerate the importance of the position held by the eldest son in the higher class Chinese household. After his father he is the male head of the family. His wife is the attendant shadow, the never-failing companion of his mother. Our phrase, a man marries, is expressed in Chinese as, he leads in a new woman. Under the old regime he literally did so, for he invariably brought his bride to his ancestral home. The phrase for the marriage of a girl is, she goes forth from the family. A new woman is the term for a bride. The Western education of many young men of the Chinese upper class has resulted in some acute readjustment in the ancestral households. Often these elder sons return, marry according to the old custom and live in their parental homes. But often too they marry advanced Chinese women, set up establishments and professions of their own, far from their native cities, and live after semi-foreign ways. In this respect our case was somewhat typical. As I have already related, Chang King's mother had been looking forward for years to the marriage of her eldest son with the little Miss Li Ying. She had expected in her middle age the usual release of the Chinese woman from the bonds of youth, having been a faithful and obedient wife and daughter-in-law. She rightfully expected to assume authority over her family, leaning on the arm of her son's wife. This younger woman would take her place in the long chain of dutiful daughters. She would help to welcome guests. She would keep up the family shrines. She would perform all manner of household duties under the supervision of her mother-in-law. On the death of her husband's mother she would become the woman head of the family, responsible for everything, her privileges and authority growing with her years, especially if she were the mother of sons. Her great mission would be to furnish children to the clan in order that the ancestral shrines might never be without worshippers. I explain these matters at this point in order that I may not be mistaken for a moment when I tell the incident that follows. By this time I had lived long enough in China to be almost thoroughly orientalized, insofar as my sympathies were concerned, at least, and yet when Cheng Qing, after talking for a while about the events of his visit home, came to a full pause and said, uncertainly, there is one thing I wish to tell you, but I am not sure you will understand. I was a trifle apprehensive, but I answered at once. Of course I shall understand. China has been kind to me. What have I to fear? Cheng Qing then went on deliberately. Not until I saw my mother again did I understand that I had done a really cruel thing to her in depriving her of a daughter-in-law on whom she could lean on in her old age. Oh, Margaret, woman's lot is not easy, with all the complexities of parents and brothers and children, and I would have atoned for my share in all this if I could. But, of course, there was nothing I could do, nothing at all. And very calmly he told me that shortly after his arrival at home, his mother had conferred with him seriously on her need of a daughter-in-law. In accordance with ancient customs she wished him to take a Chinese secondary wife who would live in the family home, who would be, in a fashion, proxy for me in the role of daughter-in-law. Cheng Qing's mother offered to arrange this marriage for him, and assured him that the secondary wife and her children would be well cared for, and treated kindly during his long absences. I listened incredulously, and the question I could not ask was in my eyes. I knew, of course, that the custom of taking secondary wives was not unusual among wealthy families in China, even where both wives lived under the same roof. But I had given it only the most casual thought, and not once had it occurred to me that the problem would touch my life. Brought suddenly level with it I suffered a shock at the very foundation of my nature. I could not think, of course, in the moment that followed my husband's recital. I only felt a great, roaring tide of pain rising about me, a sense of complete helplessness, such as I have never known before or since. I wonder now at my instant subjective readiness to believe that my husband had conformed to this custom of his country, that he had shaken off his western training at his first renewed contact with the traditional habits of his race. Did you, I asked finally, and stopped. He came to me instantly his arms about me. When he saw the distress in my face he frowned with an odd remorseful twist of the brows. I wonder that you ask, he said, how could I come back to you, and to your loyalty and trust, with the shadow of that deception between us. I made it very clear to my mother that I would never have any wife but you. It's you and I together, dear one, and no one else so long as we both shall live. And his words had the solemn sound of a vow renewed. This high honesty of Chang King's with me was a rock on which I founded my faith, and his final repudiation of an accepted form among his people represented a genuine sacrifice on his part, so far as his material welfare was concerned. As generously and unhesitatingly as he had made the first one, at our marriage, he laid the second photo of offering on the altar of our love. He had, you see, according to the view of his father and mother, hopelessly injured them in his marriage. Above all, he had denied in himself the great racial instinct of the Chinese to obey his parents. If he wished to please them, here was his last opportunity. The taking of a Chinese secondary wife would have been a complete atonement in their eyes. At the same time it would have meant his instant restoration to his rightful place among them, first in their affections and inheritance. The family assistants would have placed him at once in the position toward which, without it, he would probably have to struggle for years. And later I understood how very easily he might have complied without my needing ever to know of the fact. Indeed, I could have lived in his mother's house with a second wife, and never have suspected that she was there in that position, so securely welded and impassive as the clan since, the reserve and remoteness of the personal relation, when the family peace and dignity are to be considered. Some of these matters I had been aware of since my life in China began. Some of them I learned that day in talking with Chan King, and others, as I have said, I discovered gradually afterward. But from that day certainly our relations subtly shifted and settled and crystallized. We both became forever certain that we could not fail each other in any smallest thing. Into my heart came a warmth of repose like a steadily burning lamp. We were assured of our love beyond any possibility of doubt ever again. And for a time we experienced a renaissance of youthful happiness, a fine fervor of renewed hopes and ambitions, as though spring had come again miraculously when we had expected October. The family letters came now regularly to Chan King with always a kindly message for me. Evidently relations were to be resumed on the plane of a good friendship, nothing more. But that was so much more than we had dared to hope for, that we were perfectly happy to have it so. Chan King must have mentioned his slowly failing health, for his mother sent a worried letter to him and asked him to come home for a while once more. Chan King decided that his affairs would not warrant his absence and wrote her to that effect. One morning as I sat on the sun porch sowing, A Qing appeared suddenly before me. Master's mother, he downstairs. He announced calmly. I gazed at him without understanding. What do you say? A Qing came nearer. He held up one hand and counted his words off on his fingers slowly. Miss C. Sabi, Master have got one. Mother? He inquired patiently. Yes, yes? Well, he just now have come. He downstairs. I got to my feet. I was more frightened and nervous than I had ever been. I remembered to be grateful. I was wearing complete Chinese dress, a black skirt and blue velvet jacket. This fact assumed an amusing importance in my mind as I stood there struggling to get myself in hand. I had planned this meeting a thousand times, and now that it was fairly upon me I was totally without resource. I progressed downstairs, confusedly, running a few swift steps, and then stopping short and beginning again slowly. If Chen Qing had been there I should have fled to him and left the entire situation in his hands. But I was alone and certain of one thing only. I meant to win the love of my Chinese mother if I could. Subjectively all the tales I have heard of Chinese mothers-in-law must have impressed me more than I had admitted, for I remembered something Chen Qing had told me long before. I cannot describe to you the importance of the mother in the Chinese household. She is the complete autocrat, with almost final authority over her sons, daughters-in-law, servants, relatives, everybody except her husband, who is usually absent on his business. Her old age is a complete reversal of the restraint and discipline of her youth. I stopped short at the door of the drawing-room. I saw my husband's mother for the first time. She had become to me a personality of almost legendary grandeur, and I felt a little wave of surprise going over to me that she looked somehow so real and alive and genuine. She sat in a big tall-backed chair, her hands spread flat on her knees. Her face was the face of the young mother in the photograph Chen Qing had shown me, only grown older and a trifle more severe. She was dressed in black brocade, its stiff folds and precise creases accentuating her dignity. Under the edges of her skirt glimmered her tiny gray shoes, embroidered in red and green. At her side stood the male relative who had accompanied her, a Chinese gentleman of the old school in a long gown of dark silk. Behind her stood a maid and two men's servants. I knew that she spoke no English, and as yet I had no knowledge of her southern dialect. There was a sharp pause in the dead silent room while we regarded each other.