Mr. and Mrs. Sên

In this day of kaleidoscopic changes, of brand-new ultra “smartness,” of emancipations so tremendous, so upheaving, so incalculably far-reaching that to some they almost seem to...

Miss Townsend was “At Home”—and so were the roses, the strawberries, all the delicate eggshell china and the old heavy silver. She was giving her annual garden-party. And that s...

The men lifted their hats, and passed on. General Cordez knew Lucille and had met the Senator’s daughter, but he felt no necessity to join the group of girls on the grass, and n...

The supper was long. It might have been called a little heavy, if the food had not been so very good. It is not of the South to offer a guest a simple meal. Miss Julia gave her...

As they sat at breakfast—Miss Julia and the girl—Lysander brought his mistress, and proffered on a great silver salver, a florist’s ribbon-bound box. There were carnations in it...

And Ivy tried to look convinced, and to do it cordially. She loved Miss Julia. She was not convinced, not even greatly impressed or interested. The ramifications of the color-qu...

If Sên King-lo had such a desire, he was scarcely aware of it. And a Chinese usually knows perfectly what all his own wishes are. There is very little that floats; most is secur...

Ivy Gilbert had a far happier lot than a nursery governess can count on. But even so she was not quite as happy as it’s good for a girl to be, and not nearly as happy as she’d h...

“Charlie,” Lady Snow said to her husband, almost a month later at dinner, “I made a new acquaintance today at Mrs. Ransome’s, and—I don’t know what you’ll say—I asked him to call.”

Sên King-lo called upon Lady Snow, called when she was at home, two days after the night that Reginald Hamilton had caused Sir Charles’ right foot to tingle and twitch under the...

When changing for dinner Ivy—a little cross from an unusually hot schoolroom friction—had thought to herself, “It will be a sort of lantern lecture on China—a lantern lecture wi...

It was not late the next morning when Mr. Sên’s orchids came—to Lady Snow, of course. He sent nothing to Miss Gilbert—but she could scarcely expect her confession-book back so s...

As he walked his horse slowly back to his rooms, Sên King-lo, thinking the morning over, concluded that he liked the girl he had just ridden with very much indeed. And he began...

From East and from West the sea-covered wires ran with alarm and twanged with suspense for a week or more. Something like international crises threatened, and quivered the diplo...

The next day but one Sên sent back Miss Gilbert’s “confession-book,” and with it a boxful of lilies-of-the-valley. He sent no message, no note, not even a card. But the flowers...

From then they were thrown together almost constantly—not by others, but by circumstances and social accidents. And both to her surprise and to his—more to his than to hers—thei...

“Damn! Hell!” the phlegmatic Englishman cried hotly. He was shaving, and he’d cut himself rather badly. (He had a dressing-room of his own, and used it but rarely.) He sopped of...

Emmeline Hamilton lay on a pile of cushions heaped on the floor, one hand under her head, her knees hunched up in what she thought a Chinese attitude, a cigarette she tried to i...

Sên King-lo sat on the floor, Blanche standing behind him, her chubby arms pinion-tight about his neck, her small fat hands clutched on his face. Dick sprawled at his knees, one...

Emmeline Hamilton was silly—decadent even but she was far from stupid. She made her move at once now, but she made it deftly and unbiased or hampered by anything that Reginald h...

Abraham Kelly was as shrewd and polished as he was hard: a lawyer such as only New England can produce. He liked the Chinese Minister, and his Chinese Excellency liked and trust...

Ivy Gilbert heard of the paragraph of course; every one did. She heard of it that evening, but she gave it even less thought than Sir Charles did; for he wondered idly who had i...

No mention was made, of course, as none had been made the evening before, of the cancerous rumors with which society’s amiable chit-chat had been teeming for weeks, and the ugli...

The story of Reginald Hamilton’s last ride in Washington never got out. His horse found its way back to its stable, quite uninjured, and that, plus a check for a bill never befo...

Ivy knew. And because she reeled a little under the shock—and all that it meant—she blundered into words that were the last she’d have spoken, if she and her tongue had known wh...

Ivy met him gaily, bearing herself so naturally, her gaiety so unexaggerated, that she almost deceived herself and must have deceived him completely, if it ever had entered his...

Dick, more frightened than hurt, was carried home that same night; but wee Blanche was badly hurt, and the doctor would not allow them to move her. The wound on her head was a b...

Sên let himself in quietly; the doctors forbade knocking or ringing—Blanche _might_ be asleep. His sitting-room door was open, and he glanced in cautiously as he stood in the ha...

Ivy and he had lunched at Miss Julia’s—blind Miss Julia—and were walking home through the woods, at least as far as the river. They might find a cab near the bridge, or, if not,...

Washington was delighted; so were the papers—and proclaimed it. Things were a little dull in newspaperdom just now, and the Anglo-Chinese engagement was a savory tit-bit capable...

They argued it long and carefully—not once hotly—not once either failing in courtesy or affection. That was impossible because their mutual respect and affection was too well fo...

She was unhappy at her cousin’s. Emma Snow was all that was kindest. But Sir Charles could not hide his displeasure and the something too of shame that he felt. He did not blame...

All had gone well with Mr. and Mrs. Sên. There had been tiny rasps, of course; but they had been very tiny and had gone almost as soon as they had come. And neither the man nor...

It had worked so well that, when the Snows had come home a year ago, even Sir Charles had wondered if Sên King-lo might not prove to have been wiser than he—if only they stayed...

Perhaps Ruby Sên caught in her sleep something of his double strain, for she woke as the first light filtered through their loose-drawn curtains; and her waking was sharp and in...

Ruben went into the keeping of Lady Snow, “perfectly delighted to have another baby without any of the preliminary unpleasantness,” the overwatching care of his cousin Charles,...

She had seen Lo’s chair as the bearers carried it up the path, and she was sure he’d want his tea as soon as he could get it, after being coolie-jolted all the way from the Bund...

“It’s true,” he assured her, “though I scarcely believe it myself yet. Dr. Ray in Hongkong or in any other interesting place seems explicable and natural enough, but Miss Julia...

“Here is your bridesmaid,” she told Ivy gaily, as she took Mrs. Sên in her arms, then put her away a little to search the younger face with shrewd, beautiful eyes that hid the a...

Ruby had not noticed that her husband had avoided going out with her in Hongkong and was avoiding it more and more; but it was so. He was imperatively busy now, crowding into da...

The second night they camped in a wayside inn’s nondescript garden. Sên would not take his wife into the comfortless, unspeakable native hostelry. He had no wish to go there him...

At daylight Sên Ruby came out from her tent, clad for the first time as Sên ladies had been since the older garbs of China (Japan, imitative in all things, wears them now) had b...

In the miserable days that followed that day, Sên King-lo’s loyalty never swerved, but his love reeled. He still loved his wife—love does not die in an hour; only slow torture a...

Mrs. Sên knew before they left Hongkong (for Sên King-lo had told her, explaining it all as well as he could) that she would find odd customs, some, at least, of them unwelcome...

She sat immovable on the great carved and inlaid chair on the red-covered daïs at the far end of the great _k’o-tang_, as Sên King-lo came through the opened panel and k’o-towed...

Their meeting was only decently ceremonial, and Madame Sên had made no elaborate and hampering toilet today. She was a sensible old creature and did the little she could to give...

It rained all the next day, and King-lo sat with his wife and read to her and talked with her of England and of Ruben. And they wrote letters home—letters that would be long in...

“And if I will _not_ dismiss thee—will not dismiss thee ever, Sên King-lo, or release thee from the obedience and fealty thy ancestors have sworn of thee? But chain thee to my s...

June flowers grew in the grass, a beryl and cinnabar sky crowned and mantled the world. The trees were heavy and big with leaf, grave and gay with a score of greens. Bees hummed...

Old women’s ignorant, unscientific tales, silly peasant chatter—English tales, English chatter—ribaldry lurched threateningly to her recollection. Laughed at, turned from in dis...

If they had given her courteous welcome, they gave her kindliest parting. They gave her many words, and she understood the kindness of their tones. And they gave her many gifts....

He turned back on their route and retraced his own steps of the day before. On a hillock not far from the tent his wife was in but standing back on their road of travel, nearer,...

The rural social strongholds in England are far less complacent and easy-going than London is. London is something of a jade and unbends to any fun. The “county” is a prude, res...

Sên King-lo loved his baby girl almost as tenderly as he loved the mother he had never seen. Once, in the demanding day of early wifehood when Ruby had asked him, as wives fooli...

It had been an unflawed year of renewal and achievement. They had ridden a great deal—always gay and happy and near to each other when they rode together—with something of the s...

They had been sitting here, on the broad garden bench, hand in hand, since tea, but saying little. King-lo had left her a few moments ago and had gathered the rose that she was...