Ivy took a step towards him. Sên King-lo did the rest. He wrapped his arms and his love about her. He laid his face on her face. Presently he whispered words in her ear—Chinese words. She knew none of them—but she did not hear them as strange. He cupped her face in his hands and put it from him a little, that he might learn it again, that his eyes might speak his love to her eyes. And her eyes did not falter. They took what he gave. “Will you come _home_—with me—some day—to China?” “To the end of the world,” she told him. She had not spoken before. And he took her back into love’s tender, reverent crushing, his face against her face. There was neither England nor China, nor Virginia: there was only Heaven. A gray cloud darkened the beryl and cinnabar sky. The Potomac ran colder. CHAPTER XXX Washington was delighted; so were the papers—and proclaimed it. Things were a little dull in newspaperdom just now, and the Anglo-Chinese engagement was a savory tit-bit capable of being served up in a number of ways, and was. Dick and Blanche were in an ecstasy, and girls Ivy scarcely knew touted shamelessly to be her bridesmaids. Every one was surprised, which made it all the more exciting. Every one, with only three exceptions: Lady Snow, Dr. Ray and Kow Li. Even Emma Snow was a little surprised, but not so the Chicago physician and Sên’s Chinese manservant. It had been expected long ago; but it had hung fire so long that Washington society had quite made up its mind that there was nothing in it beyond a friendship too long-drawn-out and too serene to have even the zest of flirtation, and Lady Snow herself had come to lean to that opinion now and then. Until a June day and an old apple-tree had rent the veil, Sên and Ivy had kept their mutual secret so well from each other that it was scarcely surprising that they had balked others of it. Not many in Washington approved, but most were pleased—a very different thing—and the papers were honestly grateful. It came with all the toothsome surprise of an unforeseen sensation. And the wedding would be great fun. Would they be married at the Church of the Ascension? Was Sên King-lo a Christian? Nobody seemed to know. Or would they take Convention Hall or the Lafayette Square Opera House and be married on the stage with Chinese rites by Chinese priests, with posture girls at the back and tom-toms in the orchestra, and fire-crackers for confetti? What fun! Truck-loads of Chinese junk, real and imitation, poured in on Ivy from mere acquaintances, and from a number whom she had not met, but was going to meet now—if _they_ could contrive it. Lucille Smith sat on the doorstep, and for days Ivy had to stay indoors to avoid reporters and camera men—even the back-door and the tradesmen’s gate were “watched”—and Sên King-lo was photographed every time he came to see his fiancée, which was often.