Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/242

RV 237 (LI PO) Her outline on the mountain he can trace, Now leans she from the tower in moonlight pale."

Excitedly, Yang Kuei-fei watched the written characters which Li Po was flinging on silk. These verses with their magic rhythms were for her.

Kao Li-shih stood near by, with the hatred of sharp swords in his eyes. Resentment of the ridicule to which his dignity had been subjected by Li Po still smouldered. What use his high position in the Empire if he must be subjected to every vagrant whim of a philandering poet?

Kao's face broke into an evil smile. Li Po moistened his brush with his tongue meditatively.

Kao leaned forward and whispered into the ear of Yang Kuei-fei. "Honored Princess, is this enormous insult to pass? Do you not know that Fei-yen, or Lady Flying Swallow, was no more than a sing-song girl whose beauty charmed an Emperor in the days of Han? Are you then but a sing-song girl of Changan? If this slight is permitted to pass, who knows what this depraved poet may write."

Secretly, Yang Kuei-fei had always envied Fei-yen RV 237 (237)