Chapter VII: Part 7

“It is n't an artery,” she mused, studying the wound. “Not a big one, anyway.” And she washed it, and drew it together with plaster from my emergency kit, and bandaged it very neatly. Then she helped me to lie down--brought pillows from her own room to place behind my head.

She did not ask one question; just worked to make me comfortable. Finally she sat on the edge of the bed, and critically looked me over.

“You'll be all right,” she said thoughtfully. “I know one thing that is the matter. We both forgot all about luncheon.”

I had not thought of it.

“Well,” she went on, “I feel a little faint myself. I couldn't think what on earth was the matter until it came over me all at once that I've eaten nothing to-day but one very small breakfast.”

I let her ring for the waiter and order food. During this space of time I lay still, trying to think how I should tell her. Every moment it grew harder. But at last I caught her hand, when she was passing the bed, and drew her down beside me. She knew well enough what was on my mind, but she only stroked my forehead with her soft, cool fingers.

In this time, so pregnant for her, and so painful, she was thinking how she might spare me!

I told her exactly what had taken place; clumsily enough but, at least, clearly.

She had been there in her room all the time, and had not heard a single unusual sound.

She did not say much, beyond a thoughtful question or two. The tray came, and she arranged the little meal as attractively as she could, there on the edge of the bed. But we both grew more and more sober as the moments went by. The thought of poor Crocker in acute physical pain, that once splendid body of his crippled and useless, disturbed us both. I was glad to see that there were tears in Heloise's eyes.

After the belated luncheon I felt distinctly better. At four o'clock I got up. Heloise, who was doing her best to keep busy about her own room, came to the door and suggested a walk.

“It won't hurt either of us,” she added, with a wan smile.

So we went out and strolled over to that great thoroughfare, the Hata High Street, where the yellow people swarm, and the uniformed police direct the traffic with an almost Occidental sense of order, and the long brown camel trains from Mongolia and Kansu pad softly over the very modern pavement and under the electric street lights.

We stayed out until nearly six. But our spirits did not rise as we had hoped. For whatever way our thoughts turned, they found no light. We did not have to talk about this; now and then our eyes met, and that was enough. Heloise was strangely, almost completely passive. Even in such trivial matters as picking our way through the traffic--where, I know, it would be natural for her to look out for herself in that brisk, self-reliant way that young American women have--she would turn to me for guidance, and press against my arm. She watched me a good deal, too, to make sure that I was not becoming tired.

At last we came back to the hotel. As we ascended the stairs I slipped my arm through hers. She looked up at my touch, and tried to smile; and her eyes seemed to cling to mine for a moment. In the dim light I could feel them as well as I could see them.

I opened my door, and stepped aside to let her pass in. Then we both stopped and looked down at a white envelope that lay on the sill. I picked it up, then entered and closed the door while she switched on the light.

I turned the envelope over and over in my hand. She watched me for a fleeting second, almost timidly, then went into her own room to take off her hat.

The envelope bore the imprint of the hotel. I opened it, and read the following:

“It is with regret that the management begs to inform you of a previous engagement of rooms 16 and 18 for the 15th instant, necessitating that the rooms be vacated by that date.”

Heloise came to the door, and stood there observing me. She was tucking back a rebellious strand of hair; and she looked very slim and girlish, standing that way with both arms raised.

I went over to the casement window, and threw it open. Then I sat down by it, on one of the chairs of bent iron.

She came toward me, disturbed but hesitant.

I handed her the paper. She read it, standing very st ill. Then she looked up. Her face twisted a little.

“Why, Anthony,” she said, with a catch in her voice, “we 're put out of the hotel!”

The sentence ended in an odd, explosive little laugh. Then, abruptly, she slipped to the floor beside me, threw her arms across my knees, hid her face on them, and sobbed.

There was nothing I could say, of course. The matter was absurdly unimportant compared with the grimmer uncertainties before us. Yet it had hit me with almost the same force.

I laid my hand on her shoulder. I stroked her head. After a little she groped for my hand with one of hers and, when she found it, clung tightly to it.

And all the time I was thinking how like a child she seemed. I believe that is the supreme quality of the artist--childlikeness. It is a quality that carries the adult worker through hells of suffering and heavens of unearthly joy; and it is a quality for which small allowance is made in this particular world.

*****

It will soon be dawn. I have written almost all night. Probably now I had better try to get some sleep.

She came to the door--hours ago. There was on her face that new passive quality; I can not define it exactly, even in my own thinking.

“Anthony,” she said, with choirs of suppressed music in her low voice, “would it be better, tomorrow you know, for us to...” She had to begin again. “Do you wish me to go away from you? You must tell me--not what you want, but what you believe is best.”

I could only look at her for a moment. I could n't think at all.

“Heloise dear,” I said finally, “I don't know what is best. But I know I can't let you go. Not yet. Not with everything uncertain, like this. We'll look up another hotel in the morning.”

She pursed her lips. Then, with a look of sober relief that she could not altogether control she slipped back into her own room. And I closed the shrunken door behind her, and hung my raincoat over the narrow opening that was left.

_April 15th, 11 A. M._

|WE are in another dingy little hotel--off to the eastward of the Legation Quarter, opposite the German wall. We packed our trunks last night. It is forlorn business, of course. But Heloise has not seemed greatly depressed. I suppose that any activity is a relief to her spirits after the strain.

She is out now; and I am a little worried. The situation has switched about rather oddly, it appears, within the hours, and it is I who must play the passive rôle.

Directly after breakfast we rode over with our band luggage and engaged these rooms. I left Heloise here, and myself went back for the trunks. It took me some little time.

When I returned, I found a note in my room. Heloise had suspended it by a string from my chandelier, where I could not miss it.

There were only a few sentences, penciled in haste. She feels that she must see Crocker herself. And now that he, poor fellow, has lost the advantage of his greater physical strength, they can meet as equals, in a sense.

This is natural, I think--and right. There would have to be a meeting; I can see that now. But it is not so easy to sit quietly here. I can do nothing, except to go on writing until she....

They are calling in the hall. I think they want me at the telephone.

It was Heloise.

I am still to wait. She asks it; and I will. And she is right. It is the only thing to do. This is her task, not mine.

But what a task for her slender hands--alone there in the great hotel where men drink and bargain, where tourists swarm, where women parade!

I wish I could know something of the details, and of what is to be done. If I could only help!

“Anthony,” she said. “He is gone.”

“Gone!” I repeated stupidly.

“He died this morning, Anthony. He was not alive when the automobile arrived here.”

“But,” I blundered on, “I don't understand--it was a bad fall, but--”

“It was not the fall,” she said. Then, “Wait there, I shall need you.”

I heard the click that cut me off, but for a moment I just stood there with the receiver still pressed to my ear.

It was I myself who had let him have the knife.

_April 15th. Night._

|HELOISE called me over to the big hotel this noon, and we had a little talk. I was glad to find her completely mistress of herself. She was very grave, but she had a direct, practical way about her that, I could see, had instantly commanded respect among these strangers. One thought that had worried me not a little during the hours of her absence was that she might have difficulty in identifying herself as Crocker's widow. But it was evident that no such question had arisen.

She told me that there was some uncertainty as to whether the American Minister or the Consul-General at Tientsin should be brought into the matter, and asked me to speak with the manager.

I was down in the main corridor, near the office, waiting for an opportunity to do this, when I encountered the Cincinnati man. He rose from a table, in the lounge, and crooked his finger at me. I joined him.

He glanced about to make sure that no one was within earshot, then said, talking around his cigar: “I saw them bring him in. Is he dead?”

I nodded.

“Looked like it. Too bad.” He lowered his cigar and pursed his lips.

“Do the job himself?”

I nodded again.

“Thought so. The idiots brought him right through here, with the knife lying on top of the robe. Pure luck that it happened to be morning, and nobody much around. I've been looking him up. It's awkward--awkward as hell. I saw his wife. You want to keep her out of the publicity, I take it.”

The man was not unkind. He was studying me with shrewd eyes,--I knew that,--but he was so physically big and solid, and so plainly a man of affairs in that rough, practical world that Crocker himself had inhabited, that I found myself leaning on him. He could help. And, as I returned his quiet gaze, I knew that I could trust him. I realized, all at once, that the code has its good side as well as its bad.

“Has there got to be publicity?” I asked.

He squinted his eyes, took a thoughtful pull at his cigar, and nodded. “Rather,” he replied. “Everybody knows the Crocker family. And this fellow himself has been on the front page now and then. Publicity? Good God, man, stop and think a minute! He's dead. And death is one thing you can't hush up so easily. I know our newspaper boys--and I know _that_.... Look here, suppose I take hold with you. Glad to do what I can.”

I nodded at this, and said--“I wish you would.”

“All right. But tell me first, is Mrs. Crocker all right? The correspondents are sure to get at her, you know. Can she meet them, and keep cool?”

“Yes,” said I, “she can do that.”

His gaze lingered a moment on my face.

“I thought so,” he replied. “She looks like the right kind.”

For a little time he sat back in his chair, smoking and meditating. Then he said:

“I'll get the Consul-General on the wire and ask him to come over himself. We'll have to tell him everything, but I think we can satisfy him--I can bear witness that he was drunk and making threats. So can you. The little Frenchman from the other hotel must have seen the thing. He sputtered around like a crazy man.”

“Yes,” said I, “Crocker was alive when they started over here in the automobile.”

“I gathered that. Well, we can give a pretty complete story, among us all. I don't know just how much you can tell, of course, but I advise you to come out with everything you know. Then, when we are all together, we can agree on what we'll give to the press. The managers of both hotels will be glad to keep it quiet. And the Consul-General's all right--he'll help us out to that extent, I think. You see, there's no public interest to consider, nothing to hide but news. It's the lady being involved, you know.”

He smoked a moment longer, then concluded:

“I think we can swing it. You go up now and advise the lady to keep very quiet and follow instructions, while I'm getting Tientsin on the wire. Then meet me here.”

When I came down, twenty minutes later, he met me with a cheerful sort of steadiness and led the way to a corner of the lounge.

“The old boy's coming himself,” he said, as we dropped into chairs. “I'm dam' glad. This is no job for student interpreters.”

For a few moments we talked along in a desultory way. We had to wait for a few hours--no escaping that. I could see that the Cincinnati man had assumed the task of keeping me occupied, and I liked him for it.

He gave me his card, by the way. His name is

Hindmann. He has large interests in vaudeville theaters through the Middle West.

As we chatted, my share in this strange drama of Crocker's life and death seemed to be clearing itself up in my mind and taking form as a narrative. Hindmann had advised me to tell everything to the Consul-General. I was wondering how I could ever do it. For one moment I even thought of handing him my journal and asking him to read it. The next moment, of course, I realized how impossible it would be to do that--for this most intimately personal of my belongings is no longer mine; it is more than a part Heloise's. And the story I tell the Consul-General must be only my story.

Not an easy thing to do--disentangle my share in the tragic business from Heloise's and my joint share, and tell only that much while still telling the truth! It is a little out of my line, this lawyer-like sort of thinking.

I must have appeared rather distrait to Hindmann. But if I did, he ignored it. He just sat and smoked--a comfortably fat, round-faced man with shrewd, steady eyes--and talked along in an easy manner. He told me a good deal about his vaudeville business, I remember, and the curious problems that are constantly arising out of the invasion of the entertainment field by the moving pictures. I think I expressed some interest, now and then, even asked an intelligent question or two; but all the time that story was arranging and rearranging itself in the back of my head.

Finally I found myself beginning to tell bits of it to him. After all, why not? He would hear most of it anyway, before night. Then, after a little, it all came rushing out; and I realized that I was making a confidant of this fat man. It had to be, I think. Surely every human being, at certain intense moments of his life, needs a confidant. And I suppose there is never any telling, in a given case, what sort of individual will be chosen for the trust. Crocker chose me--and Sir Robert! I chose Mr. Hindmann, of Cincinnati... sitting there in a corner of the lounge of the _Hôtel Wagon-lits_, talking in a low voice in order that the little groups of American and British folk and Germans might not hear the details of the love that has so very nearly' torn my life to pieces. The usual row of Chinese merchants were over against the wall, I remember, with their glorious display of embroidered silk coats and skirts and scarves and squares hung higher than their heads. Once a great Mandarin walked by and bowed impersonally to us, attended by a dozen or more of lesser Mandarins who bowed in their turn; and they all wore stiff-fitting frock coats, and American shoes, and silk hats that came down almost to the tops of their ears!

Hindmann said very little--just listened, and smoked. Then, when I had finished, he turned away, looked rather steadily out the window, and muttered something about its being a queer world.

Later on, when it was about time for the Consul-General to arrive, he advised me to tell only of my earlier acquaintance with Crocker, of his drinking and his declared intent to do murder, of my happening to be on the stairway in the _Hôtel de Chine_ when he came running up with a knife in his hand--and the rest in full.

“But,” I protested, “the Consul-General will suspect. There are too many coincidences in that story.”

“Of course there are,” said Hindmann. “And of course he'll see through them. He was n't born yesterday. But he won't say anything about that. Neither will you. And there you are.”

The Consul-General, with his secretary, arrived at four o'clock. He took possession at once of Crocker's effects, locked them in his room and put a seal on the door. Then he called all of us before him in the manager's private office--the two hotel men, Hindmann and myself--and in the course of an hour's steady questioning drew out the story.

After which I and the hotel men withdrew, leaving him with Hindmann for another hour. I don't know what was said; Hindmann has not referred to it since. But a messenger was sent to the Legation and I know that the Consul-General himself did some telephoning.

One curious fact came out during the examination in the manager's office. Before the automobile had got out of the little Chinese street on the way from the _Hôtel de Chine_, Crocker borrowed a pencil and wrote a few hasty sentences on the back of an envelope. The Consul-General asked for the paper; but no one had thought to look for it. It proved not to be in Crocker's pockets. The automobile was called; and there, sure enough, it was, on the floor of the tonneau, just where he had dropped it.

He had written--“Don't send me home. Bury me in China.” It was dated, and signed. The Consul-General thought this over and finally suggested a temporary interment at Tientsin, unless Mrs. Crocker should have other plans. He said that the matter of a lot could easily be arranged.

Hindmann told me at dinner that the Consul-General is perplexed over Heloise's standing in the matter. While outwardly he is considerate to a fault, he explained privately to Hindmann that he can not recognize her in any official way. He is going to send Crocker's effects home under seal, for the courts to dispose of as they may decide. He suggests that Heloise employ counsel to look after her interest in his property. There is, of course, no hurry about this; it will be a year, or two, or three, before the estate can be wound up.

Hindmann was right about the newspaper correspondents. It seems that several of the largest American papers have their own men here. The great news agencies are represented, of course. And all these men got at us to-day.

I find this experience perhaps the most disturbing of all. They are very insistent, these reporters. They make me curiously uncomfortable. Underlying all their questions is a morbid eagerness to uncover a sensation, to make their “stories” as thrilling as possible. Several of them, I think, firmly believe that Crocker was murdered. They have picked up something of his recent history. They know that he was pursuing Heloise, and that he was drinking. Fortunately, none of them appears to connect me with the story in any intimate way. They are all on the trail of that other man, the man with whom she came to China. I realized to-day the curious fact that I do not so much as know the name of that man I am glad I don't.

But they will have to accept our version, I believe--the simple fact that Crocker took his own life in a fit of despondency. There are only seven persons alive who know further details, and only four who know the whole story.

Two of the reporters forced their way to Heloise this evening. It was just after eight. I was in the lounge, waiting for Hindmann. I could n't bear to think of dinner, but was trying to drink some coffee and eat a little toast. The usual evening crowd was swarming about me, talking every language under the sun. A China boy brought a chit. It was just a line asking me if I could come upstairs, signed “H.”

I went up instantly.

The management had given her the use of a small suite on the second floor. The door to her parlor was ajar, and I heard voices. I knocked, and she called to me to come in.

There were the two reporters, hats in hand. Heloise was standing by the table. She was pale, but very erect and composed. She had put on a black tailored suit. It was this, perhaps, that emphasized the ivory whiteness of her skin, and subdued the blue in her eyes.

I think she saw on my face indications that I was about to speak indiscreetly. For I was. The sight of the reporters in that room, trying to pin Heloise down to the details of this dreadful story, angered me. But before I could utter a word she took command of the situation.

“Forgive me for calling you in this peremptory way, Mr. Eckhart,” she said, “but I cannot talk to these men. You were good enough to offer to help, and, since I am alone here, I am forced to take you at your word.” Then she turned to the reporters, adding, “Mr. Eckhart knew my husband. You will please talk with him.”

Her voice was steady; but my quick eye caught a familiar, listless gesture of her left hand as she finished.

“But, Mrs. Crocker,” persisted the older man, “it has been said that--”

I threw the door wide, and sprang directly in front of Heloise, facing the reporter.

“Get out!” I said.

He frowned, but backed toward the door, as I advanced on him. Thus I got them out into the corridor. I was all ablaze. But at the door I turned for one brief glance at Heloise. Her lips were compressed. She gave me a swift look of warning. This steadied me. I closed the door, and walked down the corridor after the reporters.

“Come downstairs,” I said, “and ask your questions of me.”

So I myself came nearer to an outbreak than have any of the others. But I shall not lose my head again. And after one or two days, Hind-mann tells me, the news value of the episode will have flattened out, and they will let us alone.

_April 16th. Morning,_

|WE are going down to Tientsin on the forenoon train for the funeral. Then back here before night.

Heloise herself has seen to all the little necessary arrangements. She had me get what few flowers I could last night. And I believe we can get more in Tientsin. She wants to do everything she can for his memory in these last hours.

I think she is very fine about it. She exhibits no weakness. She shirks neither from what she regards as her duty in this tragic time nor from the results of her own acts. It has all come back to her, of course, in a thousand memory-shapes. It must have. But she does not speak of that.

The Minister sent over a large bunch of lilac blossoms last night, cut from the bushes in the Legation compound.

_April 17th._

|WE came back to Peking on the late afternoon train--Heloise, Hindmann and I. But Hindmann stayed in the smoking car most of the way.

Heloise and I sat in our compartment without saying much of anything. The sober spell of the funeral service was on us both. I bought some magazines at Tientsin, and laid them on the seat close to her hand. She picked one up, and turned the pages, but without much interest. In a few moments she laid it aside. Most of the way she rested her head back in the corner of the seat and watched the little brick stations flit by, and the Chinese farms with their mud-walled compounds.

After a time I went forward and joined Hindmann. I thought Heloise would be glad of a little solitude. Then there was a chance that she might sleep a little. But I don't believe she did, for when I looked in on her, half an hour later, she was sitting forward, chin on hand, studying the flat brown countryside with its occasional squares of green millet-spears.

She gave me a faint smile.

“Don't go away again,” she said, her eyes back on the brown and green fields and the dingy gray compounds.

And since she was not looking at me, and seemed not to expect a reply, I just dropped down opposite her and myself gazed out the window.

After a little she spoke again, with some uncertainty in her voice.

“I'll move my things back to our little hotel--first, Anthony.”

I must have shaken my head, for she added, more resolutely--

“I must, Anthony.”

“It would be trying for you to stay on at the _Wagon-lits_, of course,” I began.

“It isn't only that,” said she; then stopped.

It was not only that, of course. The poor child was, is, penniless. But this was something I could not talk about. For the first time in many days there was an awkwardness between us. Certainly I felt it, and I think she did. We could n't quite think out what to say. We had been in the presence of death, and love seemed a petty, selfish thing. And back of this, something had happened that I don't quite understand now. We have no longer the poignantly intimate sense of apartness from the world that we had during those strange, wonderful days at the _Hôtel de Chine_. The world has thrust itself between us. I can see now that we were a million miles away from actual life, over there in our two little rooms with the shrunken door between. We did not know it then; but we were. We have become self-conscious. Many things flitted into my mind to say, but I could not say them. They were all unpleasantly flavored with Consuls-General, and big, noisy hotels, and newspapers, and legal disputes. It was depressing to think that we could no longer slip unnoticed about the quaint, barbaric old city. We are known now; conspicuous, even.

And woven through all these thoughts, deep in our common consciousness, hovered that brooding mystery of death.

“All right, Heloise,” said I, “we will get your bags back to-night. The first thing. And we won't hurry about straightening out our plans. Wait a few days, until you feel more like facing things. What you need now, I think, is some rest.”

She shook her head. “I don't need rest, Anthony. Goodness knows I have strength enough for six women. I can face things. No, let's plan now. What do you want me to do?”

I sat there for several long moments, trying to think how to say it. I remember that I rubbed my forefinger back and forth along the windowsill, through the dust, and followed it intently with my eyes.

Finally she asked, still gazing out the window--

“Do you think I ought to go to Paris, Anthony?”

I nodded. Then, as she was not looking at me, said--“Yes, I do.”

“But how, Anthony? How on earth can I? Everything is mixed now.”

“I know,” said I. “But I've been thinking that out. We can do it.”

“Yes,” said she; “but don't you see--”

It was not becoming easier. So I broke out with my conclusions:

“In its essentials, dear, our plan is not changed at all.”

“That's absurd, Anthony!”

“No. What has happened has merely deferred the payment of that money. Ultimately it will have to come to you. Something, surely. I will advance it.” She moved restlessly. I hurried on. “You will give me your note and an assignment of your claim on the estate. I--I will charge you interest, Heloise. It will be perfectly businesslike. These things are done every day. Really.”

It was no good talking on. She had turned her face away, and, under pretext of resting it on her hand, was hiding it from me. I forgot what she had said about not leaving her again, and stumbled out of the compartment and went back to Hindmann.

I did not return until he told me that we were approaching the outskirts of Peking.

She smiled, as she had before. Then I helped her on with her coat, and gathered up the magazines. We stood there, awkwardly.

Finally I said--“Well, we are n't quite there yet. We may as well sit again.”

Then the train slowed down, and dallied along by jerky stages.

“Anthony,” said she. “I've been thinking, you never saw him in his younger days. He was a very likeable man, dear. He got on with people. And he was a good business man. Big and bluff, you know, and strong. I-- I've been thinking--we should n't have married, he and I. That was a mistake. I was too young to know what marriage means. And he was very positive. But I can't help wishing you had seen him--before. I really think you would have liked him, Anthony. Strong men always did.... You don't think it strange of me?”

“Heloise, dear,” said I, “I've been thinking the same strange thoughts. I did like him. He never really knew what he was doing. Even after what happened--what he tried to do--I have n't been able to feel any hatred. No, not even anger. Nothing but a queer sort of sorrow.”

“Oh, Anthony,” she breathed, her eyes shining. “_Do_ you feel that way?”

Then she said--“I've wanted to ask you.... It's difficult... did he know about--us, Anthony?”

I could n't say much now. But I nodded.

Her eyes were on mine; her lips were parted. “You told him, Anthony?”

I nodded again.

“Oh,” she cried softly--with immense relief on her dear face--“oh, Anthony, I'm so glad. Because he never could have felt in that terrible way toward you. He did n't, Anthony, did he?”

I shook my head.

The train rolled into the station-shadows, and stopped.

“Because,” she was saying in my ear, as we moved slowly out into the corridor, “hard as he was sometimes, and positive, and all shaken and tortured, even he knew the real things when he found them, Anthony. It would have hurt him, but he would have been fair--once he could really get it clear.” And she whispered, right there in the corridor of the car, with passengers crowding behind us and before--“I'm so glad he knew it was _you!_”

Hindmann tells me that we passed Sir Robert to-day in the railway station at Tientsin. It seems that that old man and I actually brushed sleeves.

I did n't know this. Did n't see him at all, in fact. But Hindmann says he looked straight at me, without the slightest sign of recognition--first at Heloise and then at me.

He had a young woman with him; a rather good-looking girlish person, very thin, but “with a way about her.” Hindmann has seen her before. He thinks she ran a gambling club in Macao when he was last on the Coast.

Sir Robert himself impressed him as looking extremely old and not a little feeble, with a slight paralysis that has twisted his face up curiously on the left side.

I am glad I did not see him. I hope I never shall.

_Grand Hôtel des Wagon-lits. April 17th. Later._

|I HELPED Heloise get her things back to our little hotel last night. Then I packed a bag and came over here and took a room.

She did n't say anything when I told her I was going to do this. But I am sure she realizes that it is the only thing to do. It disturbs me to think of her alone over there. But now that she is known to half the white people in Peking, I will not permit myself to stay there with her. I will not have her talked about on any new grounds. And now that I am beginning to understand her, I see clearly enough that I must protect her. Lately it has seemed to me that none of the more artificial restraints that society accepts as necessary details of a working code mean much to her.

I begin to think that in certain fine ways women are more primitive than men. In the sense, I mean, that their deeper emotional nature lies closer to the roots of life than ours does. They are more elementally natural, harder to sophisticate. They feel more swiftly and surely, without the elaborate intellectual machinery that men find it necessary to call into use in order to arrive at conclusions. In certain respects they are deeper and bigger than we are.

I have read all this in the books, of course--years ago--but never before believed it in the sense that belief implies personal experience and understanding.

_April 18th. Morning. (At the Wagon-lits)._

|YES, I was right in moving over here. Heloise admitted it to-day. I asked her if she did n't agree with me, and she said she had come to think that my judgment is better than hers in these matters. God knows, I am unworldly enough--sometimes I feel that she and I are nothing but a couple of babes in the woods of life--but at least I am a bit more worldly than she.

And I was right in insisting that we go right on with our plan, as if nothing had happened. I have forced myself to go over the whole difficult business, thinking it out step by step; and I was right.

It _is_ a difficult business. Sometimes, at night, when my imagination slips out of control and dream-pictures come of a home of my own, it is almost more than I can bear. Last night I had to switch on the lights and work until daylight over the notes for Volume Six. (That is to be the section devoted to “True Intervals and Natural Song.”)

I am driving myself to think constantly of the other side of the picture--to realize how beautiful Heloise is, what a person she is and what a voice she has. No home that I could conceivably offer her would be large enough to contain her life. And when I construct in my mind the years during which she would have to fight her own inclinations, deliberately confine her activities and build barriers against the growth of her own soul, my resolution strengthens. If it is hard to give her up now, it would be impossible then. I know myself well enough to know what I should be and do, then. I would be jealous of her very bigness. I would, likely as not, come to hate her beauty, her voice, her capacity for work. I would fight to make a _Hausfrau_ of her, with babies, and meals to get--meals for me!--and sweeping and dusting to look after. And then, should I succeed in that miserable purpose; should I have to realize, every day and every night, with her beauty fading and with that wonderful edge on her voice becoming blunted and the tones growing uneven and foggy, that I had shut her out of the chance for growth that God gave her--this, after she had already taken one desperate, tragic step toward freedom--should I find myself forced to live, day after day, year after year, with any such realization as that, I think the time would come when I would want to kill myself.

The man who deliberately stops a woman's growth--no matter what his traditions and beliefs; no matter what his fears for her--is doing a monstrous thing, a thing for which he must some day answer to the God of all life.

As civilization stands now, the woman who marries shuts herself out from the possibility of a career. Not in every instance, of course; but certainly in such an average, modest marriage as mine would have to be. I have some means, of course; but not nearly enough. And it is not likely that I shall ever “make” money in any large way.

No, I really don't believe the thing can be done. Not yet. I like to hope that some day the world will become more nearly civilized as regards marriage. But first we must make it less a matter of land and houses and goods, and of woman as property along with these. And I think we shall probably come to some system of paying woman directly for the great service of child-bearing and rearing. Yes, we men must give up the last shreds of our thought of woman as a personal possession. We are farther from that, still, than we realize, I think. I myself am far, far from it. Where Hel-oise is concerned, I know perfectly well that I am not to be trusted. God only knows what I would do, what I would come to think and believe. For the magic that is always between us would be confused in a thousand subtle ways with the heritage, of deep-lying racial habits that are in me as in every other man.

But at least, I have come to see it. For this I am thankful.

_Late Afternoon. (still the 18th.)_

|HELOISE understands now. And she agrees that I am right. She will accept the loan I suggested. And she will go to Paris.

She called up this afternoon--while I was writing.

“Anthony,” she said, “take me for a walk. It is stuffy here. I want some air.”

So she started out, and I met her near the eastern end of Legation Street.

“Just a little walk, Anthony,” she said. “I'm not getting any exercise these days. I don't seem to want to go out alone any more.... Up on the wall, Anthony, where we can feel the wind. And there won't be so much dust.”

So we climbed the ramp, and walked from the Hatamen to the Chienmen and back--two miles. South of us extended the Chinese city, that lies outside the historic stronghold of the Manchus. Northward, as far as we could see, stretched the Tartar capital, now all fresh green foliage with bits of curving tile roofs peeping out in gray-brown patches. For Peking is a city of trees.

We could see the brick walls of the Imperial City, and, within that, of the Forbidden City itself; with its acres of glazed yellow roofs.

The Tartar wall is all of fifty feet high, and nearly as broad on the top. Grass grows there; and there are parapets, and the casual ruins of stone barricades where men have fought.

I told Heloise, while we walked, that I had worked it all out. I told her, too, of a curious coincidence of this very morning. I picked up a magazine in the hotel lounge, and, turning the pages, found my attention arrested by an interview with some great singers. In that paper the three finest living operatic sopranos agreed that marriage, home, domesticity, could play no part in their lives.

I felt it my duty to tell her about this. We simply have got to face these facts. And I must help keep up her courage with my own. Once she finds herself established at Paris, her work going on, the stimulus of new acquaintances and of fine music and of the stir and rush of the Western World all about her, it will not be so hard, I think. At present, the loneliness, the sense of distance from her own kind, and the perplexing reactions of the tragedy that we have both had to pass through, combine to bring her deep emotional self closer to the surface than normal.

Then, of course, she is quite dependent on me. We do not speak of this; but I know well enough that it is every moment in her thoughts.

We did not stay out long. It is most difficult when we are together. I am going to start my own work at once. It is the only way to keep steady--I can see that. I have letters to the American Minister. I shall present them tomorrow.

We lingered at the door of her hotel. Neither of us wanted to say good-by. We stood there for several moments without speaking. Then she said:

“Will you come in?”

I shook my head.

She took a few slow steps into the doorway; then stopped.

“I shall not change, Anthony--in Paris!” she said, and hurried in without looking back.

*****

I have succeeded in getting reservations for her on the Trans-Siberian, leaving Harbin on the 23rd. That means starting from Peking on the 21st--in three days.

She says that she will not mind the long journey alone. I wish I knew of some American or English family that is going through to Moscow on that train. But I feel pretty sure that she will make the acquaintance of some fairly congenial group of tourists.

Sometimes I think of troubles that may come to her in case she should meet with no such good fortune; and then my head becomes hot and I have to clench my hands and walk out in the air. There will be men of course--and ten long days of that train! Certain ugly phrases of Sir Robert's float to the surface of my thoughts and stay there to irritate me. I can't help dwelling a little on the sinister code of the white men who travel in the East.

But it is no good thinking of these things. Heloise says they are only the chances of life, and that we have to take those. “And Anthony,” she added to-day, “they can annoy me, but they can't hurt me--they can't make any difference.”

_April 19th. Noon._

|I SENT one of my letters of introduction to the American Minister to-day, by coolie.

He replied at once, with a cordial chit asking me to tea this afternoon.

I find that Hindmann knows him. and has spoken of me to him. It turns out that the Minister regards himself as something of an amateur in Chinese music. He knew my name.

“He showed me a big book,” said Hindmann, in telling me about it, last night. “Had a lot of queer music scales in it, and pictures of instruments. He said it was the standard authority on the subject.”

“What book?” I asked him.

“Don't remember the title,” said he.

“But think, man! Think! Who wrote it?”

“Did n't notice that, either. Some German, though.”

“That can not be,” said I, with some excitement, I will admit. “Neither Boag nor von Stumbostel is within five years of publishing the results of his researches. I am nearer it than they.

“My first volume, 'The Origins of Musical Sound,' stands now in galley proof and will be published within two years. No, no, no! There is no German work that is the authority on primitive music. There is, as yet, no authoritative work. Van Haalst, Elton, Père Avard, and twenty others, merely pointed the way. All of them pointed the way wrong in certain important respects. No, if there is an authority, it is myself. I am the standard authority. The Minister does not know what he is talking about.”

Hindmann grinned.

“Seems to me,” he observed, “it was published at Bonn.”

“At Bonn!” I shouted at him--“At Bonn!”

“Yes--I'm sure it was Bonn.”

“It was not the book of von Westfall?”

“That's it,” said he, nodding. “That's the guy--von Westfall.”

So the influence of that scoundrel has penetrated to Peking! He has actually got himself regarded as an “authority”! I did n't know what to say or think. But Hindmann calmed me down a good deal. He has a steadying influence on me, anyway.

“You needn't sputter at me,” he said. “I did n't write it.”

“I know,” said I. “But I was not thinking of you. I do not know what to do. I was to have had tea with the Minister to-day.”

“Well,” remarked Hindmann, around his cigar, “why not?”

“Why not?” I repeated. “It is impossible. This man will wish to talk my subject--my subject!--with the work of that charlatan at his elbow. No, I will not talk with him. I can not. Don't you see?”

“No,” said Hindmann, “not exactly.”

“I am at once placed in competition with one that I know to be an absolute impostor. The Minister will take seriously what he regards as his own views. But they will not be his own--they will be the views of von Westfall. Don't you see? I can't go!”

Hindmann sat for a little while, smoking and thinking. He has a very comfortable way of settling his plump person into a big arm-chair.

“Look here,” he said. “You want to go over there. It's worth doing.”

I'm afraid I sniffed at this.

“But it is,” he went on. “So what you want to do is to go right ahead with it. Don't be licked by a book.”

He did n't quite understand me there. I was not “licked” at all, and I told him so.

“Prove it by going, then.” he said.

“But I'm afraid I shall insult him. I shall have to say what I believe.”

“Go ahead and insult him, then,” said he; and he took out his cigar and grinned cheerfully.

_Same date._

|I GOT Hindmann to help me out with the notes and the assignment of her interest in the estate.

He knows all about these things. He got blank note forms from the manager of the hotel. And he himself dictated the assignment paper to a Japanese stenographer. It was astonishing to me to hear him do this; on matters of legal phraseology, and where precise statement of fact is required, he is very clear-headed. But then, I suppose that my peculiar faculties would be equally surprising and interesting to him.

The document worried me a good deal. It is quite long; and it makes over to me, in the most unequivocal language, Heloise's entire interest in the property. It is worded harshly and sharply. Just reading it, I had the unpleasant feeling that I was forcing her to sign away to me everything she may possess in the world as security for a paltry loan.

“What's the matter with it?” asked Hindmann, watching my face.

“It has such a horribly ironclad look,” said I. “Then why make her sign it?”

“Because she'd never in the world accept the money, any other way.”

“Oh,” said he, very thoughtful.

“Look here,” I suggested, “could n't you modify it a little? Make it not quite so strong?”

He shook his head. “It's the regular legal form, Eckhart. I've had to do this sort of thing half a dozen times.” He smoked a little. “I suppose you know it is n't worth a hang.”

“Not worth anything?”

“Poorest security in the world. It won't be even partly binding until the executor of the estate has pledged himself to you to execute the agreement, and to accept personal responsibility in the matter. Full of holes, that thing is.”

I did n't dare let him know how my heart jumped at this. I am glad it is n't binding. I only wish it did n't look so ugly. I can't bear to think of watching her face when she reads it. I fear it will depress her. And she will have to struggle to conceal her depression.

I have figured it out that I can spare a thousand dollars from my letter of credit now. So that all she will have to do is to sign that document and one note for a thousand dollars. Then when I send her the next draft I need only enclose a new note for her signature. At Hindmann's suggestion I am going to draw each note to run a relatively short time--a year, say. Then I can look after the renewing of them myself, from time to time.

The thousand dollars that I let her have now will of course have to come out of my research money, which is really not mine at all. But at the same time that I write Harbury, of the Foundation, to sell my real estate bonds and the two railway bonds that are at the Trust Company, I shall ask him to notify the Committee that I have diverted this amount for personal use and request him to hold back an equal amount from this money of my own that he will be sending me, against the draft on my letter of credit. Hindmann has drawn up just the paper for me to send Harbury, giving him complete power to dispose of the properties for me. Really, I don't know what I should have done in all these financial complications without that fat man.

One thing I am very glad of. It is n't going to pinch me at all to do this for Heloise. My salary will go right on, of course; and the research fund will be there as before. I shan't even have to skimp on hotels and small purchases. To tell the truth, I was worried, a little, when I made that offer to her the other day. I did n't realize, at the moment, how much money I have, and how easy it is to get at. This way, I can look right into her eyes and tell her that I shall not be the less comfortable for one single hour; and I can tell her with such conviction that she will know it for the truth. It won't be nearly so hard for her.

_Same date._

|I CAN'T take those papers over. I just can't. I'm going to send them by messenger.

I'm sending the money too--in gold--in a bag. A thousand dollars. The messenger will have instructions to remain with her, and carry the money to the Hongkong bank for her in order that she may convert the greater part of it into traveler's checks or a letter of credit. It will be best for me not to appear in this transaction, of course.

I am sending it to-day because surely she will have little purchases to make, and I know how irritating it is to a person of spirit to be dependent on another for small sums of money.

I did not foresee how deeply it would stir me to do this little thing. It has roused unfamiliar, haunting thoughts and feelings and day dreams. I have been thinking of children, and of the wonderful pleasure of doing for them and making them happy....

This will not do.

I am going over to the Legation now for tea.

I got out my black cutaway coat and had it pressed, And the China boy has smoothed down my silk hat, after a fashion. I shall carry the gold-headed cane that was given me by my seminar students six years ago, lacking two months. It was a curious thing for them to do. But pleasing. Hindmann had the right idea, as usual.

I will not be licked by a book.

And I shall say exactly what I know to be true. Not in a quarrelsome spirit, of course; but straight out. It is nothing to me that he is the American Minister.

_Still the 19th. Very late._

I HAVE been greatly surprised.

When I was shown into the drawing-room at the Legation residence, the Minister himself greeted me. He is a not unattractive man--past middle life, rather stout, with many of the familiar mannerisms of the prosperous man of business who has reached a point in life where he feels he can afford to indulge and, perhaps, educate the gentler side of his nature.

I suppose his present position is a reward for generous contributions to the expenses of his party. Though I should personally regard it as a punishment.