Chapter IV

A Chinese messenger-boy ran up the street, entered the store of Wan Hom Hing & Co. and asked for the junior partner. When Lin Fo came forward he handed him a dainty, flowered missive, neatly folded and addressed. The receiver opened it and read:

DEAR AND HONORED HUSBAND,—Your unworthy Pau Tsu lacks the courage to
face the ordeal before her. She has, therefore, left you and prays you
to obtain a divorce, as is the custom in America, so that you may be
happy with the Beautiful One, who is so much your Pau Tsu’s superior.
This, she acknowledges, for she sees with your eyes, in which, like a
star, the Beautiful One shineth. Else, why should you have your Pau
Tsu follow in her footsteps? She has tried to obey your will and to be
as an American woman; but now she is very weary, and the terror of
what is before her has overcome.

Your stupid thorn,
PAU TSU

Mechanically Lin Fo folded the letter and thrust it within his breast pocket. A customer inquired of him the price of a lacquered tray. “I wish you good morning,” he replied, reaching for his hat. The customer and clerks gaped after him as he left the store.

Out in the street, as fate would have it, he met Adah Raymond. He would have turned aside had she not spoken to him.

“Whatever is the matter with you, Mr. Wan?” she inquired. “You don’t look yourself at all.”

“The density of my difficulties you cannot understand,” he replied, striding past her.

But Adah Raymond was persistent. She had worried lately over Pau Tsu.

“Something is wrong with your wife,” she declared.

Lin Fo wheeled around.

“Do you know where she is?” he asked with quick suspicion.

“Why, no!” exclaimed the girl in surprise.

“Well, she has left me.”

Adah Raymond stood incredulous for a moment, then with indignant eyes she turned upon the deserted husband.

“You deserve it!” she cried, “I have seen it for some time: your cruel, arbitrary treatment of the dearest, sweetest little soul in the world.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Adah,” returned Lin Fo, “but I do not understand. Pau Tsu is heart of my heart. How then could I be cruel to her?”

“Oh, you stupid!” exclaimed the girl. “You’re a Chinaman, but you’re almost as stupid as an American. Your cruelty consisted in forcing Pau Tsu to be—what nature never intended her to be—an American woman; to adapt and adopt in a few months’ time all our ways and customs. I saw it long ago, but as Pau Tsu was too sweet and meek to see any faults in her man I had not the heart to open her eyes—or yours. Is it not true that she has left you for this reason?”

“Yes,” murmured Lin Fo. He was completely crushed. “And some other things.”

“What other things?”

“She—is—afraid—of—the—doctor.”

“She is!”—fiercely—“Shame upon you!”

Lin Fo began to walk on, but the girl kept by his side and continued:

“You wanted your wife to be an American woman while you remained a Chinaman. For all your clever adaptation of our American ways you are a thorough Chinaman. Do you think an American would dare treat his wife as you have treated yours?”

Wan Lin Fo made no response. He was wondering how he could ever have wished his gentle Pau Tsu to be like this angry woman. Now his Pau Tsu was gone. His anguish for the moment made him oblivious to the presence of his companion and the words she was saying. His silence softened the American girl. After all, men, even Chinamen, were nothing but big, clumsy boys, and she didn’t believe in kicking a man after he was down.

“But, cheer up, you’re sure to find her,” said she, suddenly changing her tone. “Probably her maid has friends in Chinatown who have taken them in.”

“If I find her,” said Lin Fo fervently, “I will not care if she never speaks an American word, and I will take her for a trip to China, so that our son may be born in the country that Heaven loves.”

“You cannot make too much amends for all she has suffered. As to Americanizing Pau Tsu—that will come in time. I am quite sure that were I transferred to your country and commanded to turn myself into a Chinese woman in the space of two or three months I would prove a sorry disappointment to whomever built their hopes upon me.”

Many hours elapsed before any trace could be found of the missing one. All the known friends and acquaintances of little Pau Tsu were called upon and questioned; but if they had knowledge of the young wife’s hiding place they refused to divulge it. Though Lin Fo’s face was grave with an unexpressed fear, their sympathies were certainly not with him.

The seekers were about giving up the search in despair when a little boy, dangling in his hands a string of blue beads, arrested the attention of the young husband. He knew the necklace to be a gift from Pau Tsu to the maid, A-Toy. He had bought it himself. Stopping and questioning the little fellow he learned to his great joy that his wife and her maid were at the boy’s home, under the care of his grandmother, who was a woman learned in herb lore.

Adah Raymond smiled in sympathy with her companion’s evident great relief.

“Everything will now be all right,” said she, following Lin Fo as he proceeded to the house pointed out by the lad. Arrived there, she suggested that the husband enter first and alone. She would wait a few moments.

“Miss Adah,” said Lin Fo, “ten thousand times I beg your pardon, but perhaps you will come to see my wife some other time—not today?”

He hesitated, embarrassed and humiliated.

In one silent moment Adah Raymond grasped the meaning of all the morning’s trouble—of all Pau Tsu’s sadness.

“Lord, what fools we mortals be!” she soliloquized as she walked home alone. “I ought to have known. What else could Pau Tsu have thought?—coming from a land where women have no men friends save their husbands. How she must have suffered under her smiles! Poor, brave little soul!”

IN THE LAND OF THE FREE