Читать книгу Mrs. Spring Fragrance - Sui Sin Far - Страница 5

Mr. Spring Fragrance sat on his doorstep. He had been reading two letters, one from Mrs. Spring Fragrance, and the other from an elderly bachelor cousin in San Francisco. The one from the elderly bachelor cousin was a business letter, but contained the following postscript:

Tsen Hing, the son of the Government school-master, seems to be much in the company of your young wife. He is a good-looking youth, and pardon me, my dear cousin; but if women are allowed to stray at will from under their husbands’ mulberry roofs, what is to prevent them from becoming butterflies?

“Sing Foon is old and cynical,” said Mr. Spring Fragrance to himself. “Why should I pay any attention to him? This is America, where a man may speak to a woman, and a woman listen, without any thought of evil.”

He destroyed his cousin’s letter and re-read his wife’s. Then he became very thoughtful. Was the making of American fudge sufficient reason for a wife to wish to remain a week longer in a city where her husband was not?

The young man who lived in the next house came out to water the lawn.

“Good evening,” said he. “Any news from Mrs. Spring Fragrance?”

“She is having a very good time,” returned Mr. Spring Fragrance.

“Glad to hear it. I think you told me she was to return the end of this week.”

“I have changed my mind about her,” said Mr. Spring Fragrance. “I am bidding her remain a week longer, as I wish to give a smoking party during her absence. I hope I may have the pleasure of your company.”

“I shall be delighted,” returned the young fellow. “But, Mr. Spring Fragrance, don’t invite any other white fellows. If you do not I shall be able to get in a scoop. You know, I’m a sort of honorary reporter for the Gleaner.”

“Very well,” absently answered Mr. Spring Fragrance.

“Of course, your friend the Consul will be present. I shall call it ‘A high-class Chinese stag party!’”

In spite of his melancholy mood, Mr. Spring Fragrance smiled.

“Everything is ‘high-class’ in America,” he observed.

“Sure!” cheerfully assented the young man. “Haven’t you ever heard that all Americans are princes and princesses, and just as soon as a foreigner puts his foot upon our shores, he also becomes of the nobility—I mean, the royal family.”

“What about my brother in the Detention Pen?” dryly inquired Mr. Spring Fragrance.

“Now, you’ve got me,” said the young man, rubbing his head. “Well, that is a shame—‘a beastly shame,’ as the Englishman says. But understand, old fellow, we that are real Americans are up against that—even more than you. It is against our principles.”

“I offer the real Americans my consolations that they should be compelled to do that which is against their principles.”

“Oh, well, it will all come right some day. We’re not a bad sort, you know. Think of the indemnity money returned to the Dragon by Uncle Sam.”

Mr. Spring Fragrance puffed his pipe in silence for some moments. More than politics was troubling his mind.

At last he spoke. “Love,” said he, slowly and distinctly, “comes before the wedding in this country, does it not?”

“Yes, certainly.”

Young Carman knew Mr. Spring Fragrance well enough to receive with calmness his most astounding queries.

“Presuming,” continued Mr. Spring Fragrance—“presuming that some friend of your father’s, living—presuming—in England—has a daughter that he arranges with your father to be your wife. Presuming that you have never seen that daughter, but that you marry her, knowing her not. Presuming that she marries you, knowing you not.—After she marries you and knows you, will that woman love you?”

“Emphatically, no,” answered the young man.

“That is the way it would be in America—that the woman who marries the man like that—would not love him?”

“Yes, that is the way it would be in America. Love, in this country, must be free, or it is not love at all.”

“In China, it is different!” mused Mr. Spring Fragrance.

“Oh, yes, I have no doubt that in China it is different.”

“But the love is in the heart all the same,” went on Mr. Spring Fragrance.

“Yes, all the same. Everybody falls in love some time or another. Some”—pensively—“many times.”

Mr. Spring Fragrance arose.

“I must go down town,” said he.

As he walked down the street he recalled the remark of a business acquaintance who had met his wife and had had some conversation with her: “She is just like an American woman.”

He had felt somewhat flattered when this remark had been made. He looked upon it as a compliment to his wife’s cleverness; but it rankled in his mind as he entered the telegraph office. If his wife was becoming as an American woman, would it not be possible for her to love as an American woman—a man to whom she was not married? There also floated in his memory the verse which his wife had quoted to the daughter of Chin Yuen. When the telegraph clerk handed him a blank, he wrote this message:

“Remain as you wish, but remember that ‘’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’”

When Mrs. Spring Fragrance received this message, her laughter tinkled like falling water. How droll! How delightful! Here was her husband quoting American poetry in a telegram. Perhaps he had been reading her American poetry books since she had left him! She hoped so. They would lead him to understand her sympathy for her dear Laura and Kai Tzu. She need no longer keep from him their secret. How joyful! It had been such a hardship to refrain from confiding in him before. But discreetness had been most necessary, seeing that Mr. Spring Fragrance entertained as old-fashioned notions concerning marriage as did the Chin Yuen parents. Strange that that should be so, since he had fallen in love with her picture before ever he had seen her, just as she had fallen in love with his! And when the marriage veil was lifted and each beheld the other for the first time in the flesh, there had been no disillusion—no lessening of the respect and affection, which those who had brought about the marriage had inspired in each young heart.

Mrs. Spring Fragrance began to wish she could fall asleep and wake to find the week flown, and she in her own little home pouring tea for Mr. Spring Fragrance.