Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/180

 "It suffices," agreed Hwa-mei. "Bear well your part."

"Yet," suggested Kai Lung, hoping to detain her retiring footsteps for yet another span, "were it not better that I should fall short at the test, thus to enlarge your word before your fellows?"

"And in so doing demean yourself, darken the face of Shan Tien's present regard, and alienate all those who stand around! O most obtuse Kai Lung!"

"I will lay bare my throat," confessed Kai Lung. "The barbed thought had assailed my mind that perchance the rings of precious jade lay coiled around your heart. Thus and thus I spoke."

"Thus also will I speak," replied Hwa-mei, and her uplifted eyes held Kai Lung by the inner fibre of his being. "Did I value them as I do, and were they a single hair of my superfluous head, the whole head were freely offered to a like result."

With these noticeable words, which plainly testified the strength of her emotion, the maiden turned and hastened on her way, leaving Kai Lung gazing from the shutter in a very complicated state of disquietude.

After Chang Tao had reached the age of manhood his grandfather took him aside one day and spoke of a certain matter, speaking as a philosopher whose mind has at length overflowed.

"Behold!" he said, when they were at a discreet distance aside, "your years are now thus and thus, but there are still empty chairs where there should