Prepared, he restrained the latter from a prostration in the hall of the
church. Nothing had changed: the umbrella trough still bore the numbers
of the pews, the stair wound gloomily up to the organ loft. He again
found the subdued interior, the maroon upholstery, the flat Gothic
squares of the ceiling and dark red stone walls, a place of reposeful
charm. The Ammidons had two of the box pews against the right wall: his
brother and children were in the second, and, inside the other small
inclosure, he shut the gate and took his place on a contracted corner
bench. Taou Yuen sat with Rhoda against the back of the pew. The former,
blazing like a gorgeous flower on the shadowed surface of a pool, smiled
serenely at him.

He could hear the hum of subdued comment running like ignited powder
through the church, familiar faces turned blankly toward him or nodded in
patent confusion. The men, he noted, expressed a single rigid
condemnation. The women, in crisp light dresses and ribboned bonnets,
were franker in their curiosity. Taou Yuen was a loadstone for their
glances. As the service progressed her face grew expressionless. Fretted
sandalwood bracelets drooped over her folded hands, and miniature dragon
flies quivered on the gold wires of her earrings; the sharp perfumes of
the East drifted out and mingled with the Western scents of extracts and
powders. He only saw that she was politely chewing betel nut. It wasn't,
he told himself, reverting to his critical attitude toward Salem, that he
was lacking in charity toward his neighbors, or that he felt any
superiority; but the quality that signally roused his antagonism was
precisely the men's present aspect of heavy censure and boundless
propriety, their stolid attitude of justifying the spiritual consummation
promised by the sermon and hymns.

The long night watches, the anxiety of the sea, the profound mysteries of