Peony: A Novel of China by Pearl S. Buck

she spoke thus earnestly to the young girl.
    Leah continued to listen, her hands still clasped in her lap. “What do you want me to do, Aunt?” she asked at last.
    “I want you to—to—persuade David,” Madame Ezra said. “You and he together, Leah! Think how you could influence him!”
    “But David knows me,” Leah said in her straightforward way. “He would think it very odd if I were different—from what I have always been.”
    “You are grown now, you and he,” Madame Ezra urged.
    “We have always been like brother and sister,” Leah said simply.
    Madame Ezra pushed the embroidery from her lap and rose. She began to walk up and down the room. “That is exactly what I want you both to forget!” she exclaimed. “It was well enough when you were children, Leah—”
    She paused and Leah rose.
    “Yes, Aunt?”
    “You know what I mean,” Madame Ezra said harshly.
    “I know, but I don’t know how to do it,” Leah said. Tears came into her large beautiful eyes. “You want me to—to—”
    “Entice him—entice him,” Madame Ezra said in the same harsh voice.
    “I can’t,” Leah said steadily. “He would only laugh at me. And I would laugh at myself. It wouldn’t be—me.”
    She put out her hand and took Madame Ezra’s hand and held it between her own. “I have to be myself, dear Aunt, don’t I? I know David, too.” She felt her heart warm at the thought of David and she grew brave before this lady whom she loved and yet feared. “Perhaps I know him even better than you do. Forgive me, Aunt! You see, we are so nearly the same age. And I feel something in him—something great and—and good. If I can speak straightly to that part in him—which is also in me—”
    They were gazing into each other’s eyes while she thus spoke. Madame Ezra listened, her heart beating. Yes, Leah could do this!
    Then suddenly, at this instant before Madame Ezra could reply, they heard a great noise from the outside courts. Voices shouted, gongs clanged, Wang Ma hurried from the bedroom.
    “Mistress, it must be the caravan!” she exclaimed, and hastened away to find out. At the gate to the court she ran full into her husband, Old Wang.
    “The caravan—the caravan!” he yelled. “Old Mistress—Master says—please come—it’s the caravan!”
    Madame Ezra pulled her hand from between Leah’s hands. “We shall have to go,” she said. “Better today than tomorrow, the Sabbath.”
    But Leah sat still. “Aunt, let me wait here—let me think—of what you have said is my duty.”
    “Very well, child,” Madame Ezra replied. “Think of it—but come when you will.”
    “Yes.” Leah’s voice was a sigh. The next moment she was alone, and she folded her arms on the table at her side and laid down her head upon them. Then, after a few seconds, she rose and went to the corner of the room, and standing with her face toward the wall, she began to pray in a soft sobbing voice.
    The coming of the caravan each year was an event for the whole city. The news of it ran from mouth to mouth, and when the long line of camels came padding down the dusty path at the side of the stone-paved streets, the doors of every house and shop were open and crowded with people. Upon a proud white camel at the head of the caravan sat Kao Lien, the trusted business partner of the House of Ezra. Behind him came guards armed with swords and old foreign muskets, and behind them plodded the loaded camels. All were weary with the long journey westward through Turkestan and back again through mountain passes, but for the final homecoming the men had decked themselves in their best, and even the camels held their narrow heads high and moved with majesty.
    Last of all came Ezra in his mule cart. For days he had posted men along the last miles of the caravan route, watching and ready to set off to bring him word of the caravan. In the small morning hours of this day he had received the breathless runner, and had heard that the caravan was