Page:Ernest Bramah - Kai Lungs Golden Hours.djvu/236

 one of my impressionable refinement should be away from the house altogether and not merely in the inner chamber when that which is now here passes out."

"The suggestion is well timed," replied Chou-hu. "No interruption will then be possible."

"Furthermore," continued his wife, sprinkling upon her hair a perfumed powder of gold which made it sparkle as it engaged the light at every point with a most entrancing lustre, "would it not be desirable to use a weapon less identified with your own hand? In the corner nearest to Yan there stands a massive and heavily knotted club which could afterwards be burned. It would be an easy matter to call the simple Yan's attention to some object upon the floor and then as he bent down suffer him to Pass Beyond."

"Assuredly," agreed Chou-hu, at once perceiving the wisdom of the change; "also, in that case, there would be less"

"Ah!" again cried the woman, shaking her upraised finger reprovingly at Chou-hu (for so daintily endowed was her mind that she shrank from any of the grosser realities of the act unless they were clothed in very gilded flowers of speech). "Desist, crimson-minded barbarian! Let us now walk side by side along the river bank and drink in the soul-stirring melody of the musicians who at this hour will be making the spot doubly attractive with the concord of stringed woods and instruments of brass struck with harmonious unison."

The scheme for freeing Chou-hu from the embarrassment of Yan's position was not really badly arranged, nor would it have failed in most cases, but the barber was not sufficiently broad-witted to see that many of