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 shop in Grant Street—the shop of Yuan-shui, merchant of curios. A girl of fourteen, slender as the bamboo is slender, dainty as the blossom of the plum, beautiful as a jewel of pure jade. I saw her there, and it came to me that the best in life was evading me—a wife, sons to worship at the graves of my ancestors.”

He stepped nearer to Mark Drew.

“What you call love—that came to me. In my thoughts the slim figure of Mah-li was always swaying gently, like a bamboo touched by the breeze. I saw myself her husband. I heard the cry of my first-born son. Yuan-shui, whom I approached, thought it could be honorably arranged. But, as you know, I was not my own master. There was my honorable promise to your father. In this room with the firelight like two torches in his evil eyes, he listened to me while I told him how Mah-li had caught up my heart, and held it in her slender perfumed hands. I asked his permission to marry. Rh