He and Sên King-lo exchanged letters, not very frequently, but always cordially, though not with the verbal ardor of women. And when he and Lady Snow had come back to live in London and in the old place in Kent in which his mother and Ivy’s had been born, and he walked into his cousin’s drawing-room quite as if he knew she’d expect and wish him to, and simply would not be snubbed, she found it impossible to greet him as coldly as she thought he deserved. And after a first touch of frigid hauteur which he in perfectly good humor ignored, she took up their old friendliness, if not quite their oldtime friendship, again. And she soon found it easy enough to forgive him, almost to forget. It’s a mean victor who cherishes venom, and Ivy Sên was the least mean of women. She and Lo had made good. Dear old Charlie had written himself down a goose. Who could be too hard on a goose? Not the happiest, proudest woman in England. And when she saw the look in the two men’s eyes as they met, and saw the affectionate grip of their honest hands, her own eyes melted. The four cousins had dined together at the Sêns’, and the two women were discussing chiffons and babies and the sins of chauffeurs over a drawing-room fire—there were two fires in Ivy’s long drawing-room—and the men were discussing tobacco, matters of international import, and a little whiskey in Sên’s den. As King-lo leaned over the narrow table to refill the other’s tumbler, he said: “It has come.” “Has it? That’s enough soda. What has come?” But he knew before Sên told him, and Sên told him at once. “The message from China. They want me at once. By rights, I should go next week. I haven’t told her yet. I don’t know how she’ll take it.” “Thoroughbred,” Snow replied in a word. “Superbly. But she won’t like being left.” “You won’t take her?” “Of course not. The time isn’t quite ripe, I think——” Sir Charles Snow was sure that it was not even ripening and never would be, but he smoked on in silence. “But,” King-lo added hurriedly, “I may be wrong there. But we couldn’t possibly take the young Lord Ruben home with us yet. _Two_ messages came by the same post—this morning’s early one. It isn’t only that the bank needs me over there for a bit; but my grandmother tells me to come to her——” “The devil she does,” thought Sir Charles Snow. He knew those Chinese grandmothers—he knew what their suzerainty was and the ruthless way they asserted and enforced it. China might be a republic, but twenty republics couldn’t clip the wings of one old hobble-gaited grand-dame who lived, shrill and impregnable, far off from the tourist-beaten paths. “I _might_ do the work at the banks by proxy, important as it is. But Sên Ya Tin must be obeyed.” Snow nodded. He knew that.