A House Divided by Pearl S. Buck Page A

leaves were silver and not green. There were six chairs such as the one he sat on, soft in the seat and covered with pink satin. At the windows were hung white strips of fine cloth, and on the wall was hung a picture of a foreign sort behind a pane of glass. This picture showed high mountains very blue, a lake as blue, and on the mountains foreign houses such as he had not seen. It was very bright and pretty to the eye.
    Suddenly a bell rang somewhere, and Yuan turned his head to the door. He heard quick footsteps, and then a girl’s voice high and full of laughter. He listened. It could be perceived she spoke to someone, although he heard no answering voice, and many words she used he scarcely understood, ripples interspersed of some foreign tongue.
    “Ah, it is you?—No, I am not busy—Oh, I am tired today, I danced so late last night—You are teasing me—She is much prettier than I—You laugh at me—She dances much better than I do—even the white men want to dance with her—Yes, it is true I did dance with the young American—Ah, how he can dance—I will not tell you what he said!—No, no, no!—Then I will go with you tonight—ten o’clock! I will have dinner first—”
    He heard a pretty rill of laughter and suddenly the door opened and he saw a girl there, and he rose to bow, his eyes dropped down in courtesy, avoiding a direct look at her. But she ran forward swiftly, graceful as a darting swallow and as quick, her hands outstretched. “You are my brother Yuan!” she cried gaily in her little soft voice, a voice high and floating seemingly upon the air. “My mother said you were here all of a sudden—” She seized his hands and laughed. “How old-fashioned you are in that long robe! Shake hands like this—everybody shakes hands now!”
    He felt her small smooth hand seize his, and he pulled his own away, too shy to bear it—staring at her while he did it. She laughed again and sat down on the arm of a chair and turned her face up at him, the prettiest little face, three-cornered as a kitten’s, the black hair smooth and curled upon her rounded cheeks. But it was her eyes that held him, the brightest, blackest eyes shot through with light and laughter, and beneath them was her red little mouth, the lips very full and red and yet small and delicate.
    “Sit down,” she cried, a little imperious queen.
    He sat then, very carefully upon the edge of a chair, not near her, and she laughed again.
    “I am Ai-lan,” she went on in her light fluttering voice. “Do you remember me? I remember you so well. Only you have grown up better than you were—you used to be an ugly little boy—your face so long. But you must have some new clothes—all my cousins wear foreign clothes now—you would look nice in them—so tall! Can you dance? I love to dance. Do you know our cousins? My eldest cousin’s wife dances like a fairy! You should see my old uncle! He’d like to dance, but he is so old and hugely fat, and my aunt won’t let him. You should see him when she scolds him for staring at pretty girls!” Again she laughed her restless, flying laughter.
    Yuan stole a look at her. She was slighter than any creature he had ever seen, as small as any child about the body, and her green silk robe fitted as tightly to her as a calyx to a bud, the collar high and close about her slender neck, and in her ears were little rings of pearls and gold. He looked away and coughed a little behind his hand.
    “I came to pay my respects to our mother and to you,” he said.
    She smiled at this, mocking his sedateness, a smile that set her face twinkling, and she rose and went to the door, her step so swift it seemed like a light running.
    “I’ll go and find her, brother,” she said, making her voice solemn to mock his. Then she laughed again and flung a teasing look at him from out her black kitten’s eyes.
    The room was very quiet with her going, as though a little busy wind had suddenly ceased to blow in it. Yuan