realities were concerned he had no fear of Taou Yuen's ability to justify
herself completely. He possessed a stupendous admiration for her.

He watched her now with the mingled understanding and mystification that
gave his life with her such a decided charm. Her gaze had fastened on the
mirror-stand above the drawers: she must be wondering if she would have
to paint and prepare herself for him here, openly. He knew that she
considered it a great impropriety for her face to be seen bare; all the
elaborate processes of her morning toilet must be privately conducted. He
recognized this, but had no idea what she actually thought of the room,
of his family, of the astonishing situation into which her heart had
betrayed her.

One and then another early hope he saw at once were vain. It had seemed
to him that in America, in Salem, she might become less evidently
Chinese; not in the incongruous horror of Western clothes, but in her
attitude, in a surrender to superficial customs; he had pictured her as
merging distinctively into the local scene. In China he had hoped that in
the vicinity of Washington Square and Pleasant Street she would appear
less Eastern; but, beyond all doubt, here she was enormously more so. The
strange repressed surrounding accentuated every detail of her Manchu pomp
and color. The frank splendor of her satins and carved jades and
embroidery, her immobile striking face loaded with carmine and glinting
headdress, the flawless loveliness of hands with the pointed nail
protectors, were, in his room, infinitely dramatized.

The other, less secure possibility that she might essentially change
perished silently. In a way his wish had been a presumption--that a
member of the oldest and most subtle civilization existing would, if she
were able, adopt such comparatively crude habits of life and thought.