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Updated: May 7, 2025
The dreams about a great foreign commerce, a white house like the Ammidons', were futile; it was too late. He could expect nothing from life but the unspeakable monotony of his father's dwelling, the bare office. He had worked hard, been as full of splendid early resolutions as anyone, and he wasn't blamable if chance balked his ambition.
"She's Chinese," he said indifferently, "and that means yellow." Nettie made a gesture of distaste. "They seem to get along well enough. Of course, it's ridiculous to call it a marriage, and it seems to me very questionable to impose it on the Ammidons as that. The thing is how long will it last, how soon will he get tired of her and send her back to Canton?"
It's proper for those who sin to suffer in this world that they may be humble for the next." "I don't want to be humble," Nettie told her. "The Ammidons aren't humble. Mrs. Saltonstone isn't." A pain deepened visibly on the elder's pale countenance. "You mustn't think it doesn't hurt me, Nettie, to to see you away from all the pleasure. It tears at my heart dreadful.
A growing doubt seized him as he mounted the outside steps of the Ammidons' impressive house; but he crushed it down and firmly rapped with the polished knocker on the opened door. The family, a servant told him, was in the garden; and he followed through a large white-paneled hall into a formal drawing-room and green space beyond.
Jeremy Ammidon said finally: "If it's done it's done. I used to think there were two Ammidons in the firm, not to mention Gerrit; but it seems there's only one. A man who has never been to sea." He rose and marched, slower and more ponderous than ever before, to the cupboard where he kept the square bottle of Medford rum; there, with trembling hands, he poured himself out a measure.
The town, so lately folded in lush greenery, showed a dun lift of roofs and stripping branches tossing against an ashy sky. Close beside Roger stood Barzil Dunsack, his beard blowing, with Kate Vollar in a bright red shawl, her skirts whipping uneasily against her father's legs. Beyond were the Ammidons William, and Rhoda in a deep furred wrap, and their daughters.
She didn't analyze it further; but drifted with the vigorous chattering tide of the Ammidons. They arrived at the impressive entrance open on a high dim interior. Jeremy and William Ammidon went in, Rhoda lingered while a chair was brought for her, and Sidsall and Camilla, Laurel and Janet ranged themselves facing the Square. Gerrit hung silent in the doorway.
He wanted to ask a thousand questions, but he knew that even if the Ammidons were too dense to grasp his curiosity, Taou Yuen herself would comprehend his impoliteness. Nowhere else could be found the wisdom and poise of a Manchu lady. Jeremy Ammidon, in a lawn chair, a smoking cheroot in his fingers, asked him about affairs of Chinese government and commerce.
"Ridiculous," her father replied. Brevard realized that he must support the girl's bravery of spirit. How adorable she was! But, before the overwhelming superior position of the elder Ammidons, their weight of propriety and authority, his determination wavered. "To be quite frank," the other man proceeded, "since it has been forced on us, Sidsall imagines herself in love with you, Brevard.
You would have been married to Gerrit Ammidon now if he hadn't interfered; you would have been walking about the Ammidons' garden with your hand on his arm in place of that Chinese prostitute." "I don't see why you should make me so miserable," she declared. "I don't care anything about the garden, it isn't that. Why do you suppose he brought such a woman home?"
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