"So I have to sit down and submit to that tamely," she murmured. "You little white-faced cat, you pink doll, so you are going to get the best of me. We shall see; oh, yes, we shall see. If I could be somewhere where I could tear myself to pieces, where I could scream aloud and nobody could hear! If I could only face him now and smile and say honeyed words! Tomorrow, perhaps, but not tonight. Even I have my limits. . . . He's coming back!"CANAL SCENE SOUTH OF SHANGHAI. CANAL SCENE SOUTH OF SHANGHAI.
ONE:"Of course no one has seen this despatch, eh?--Oh!"--a smile--"yes? who?""I haven't been ordered to tell any one where I'm going."
TWO:I am sorry that I asked you for her address, he said; I will be going home, and you must get back to your packing. Good-night, Propert.Mrs Goodford finished her plum tart.
TWO:I nodded and slyly opened the door enough to pass half-way out. Some man was parleying with Miss Harper. "Now, madam, you know you haven't locked up your parlor to maintain an abstract right; you've locked it up because you've got the man in there that I've come for."As the rider wheeled away I blurted out with anxious loudness in the general hubbub, "Isn't his brother with him?"
TWO:Then he turned to Alice."It is the rule in Japan for a man to have only one wife at a time, but he does not always stick to it. If he has children, a man is generally contented; but if he has none, he gets another wife, and either divorces the first one or not, as he chooses. Divorce is very easy for a man to obtain, but not so for the woman; and when she is divorced, she has hardly any means of obtaining justice. But, in justice to the Japanese, it should be said that the men do not often abuse their opportunities for divorce, and that the married life of the people is about as good as that of most countries. Among the reasons for divorce, in addition to what I have mentioned, there are the usual ones that prevail in America. Furthermore, divorce is allowed if a wife is disobedient to her husband's parents, and[Pg 262] also if she talks too much. The last reason is the one most frequently given; but a woman cannot complain of her husband and become divorced from him for the same cause. I wonder if Japan is the only country in the world where women have ever been accused of talking too much.
Mrs Goodford took no notice whatever of this. It is likely that her quick little eye had intercepted the telegraphic suggestion of champagne, and that she was justly irritated at her son-in-la{25}ws rejection of it. She laid herself out to be more markedly disagreeable than usual.I wish you would not call it dressings-up, Mamma, she said. You know perfectly well that they are vestments. They all signify something: they have a spiritual meaning.