Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/266

RV 261 (AN LU-SHAN) even if he ate horse-meat, why be revolted? Is not a horse as clean as a pig?"

He looked at her astounded. "You don't understand," he said in a low voice, almost huskily. "Perhaps your Emperor's words might convey my abhorrence of such feasting."

"Proceed," said she, surprised. Never had Kuo-chung gone out of his way to champion anything. "What did his Majesty say?"

"I heard him once declare that a man might as well eat the flesh of his brother, as to eat the flesh of his horse."

Yang Kuei-fei capitulated at once. "I'm sorry," she said. "For a moment I forgot. I was thinking of a horse merely as meat, not as the noble animal he is. I feel chastised. And I bow to your courage in opposing me."

"Though you are powerful, Princess," said he, "you are still my cousin, and I doubt if even anger could arouse you to seek revenge against your own blood. You are clever, well educated, proficient in the classics, and let me whisper it for your ears alone—artful. But you are more, my Princess. About you there is a quality beyond even your own understanding."

Bitterly, she turned away. She was not worthy of such a eulogy. She was despicable, desiring An Lu-shan. She was no better than one of the cheapest of the singsong girls who lived on P'ing Kang Street and had proved such a dismaying attraction for the weak Prince Shou, whose consort she had been. How far away those days seemed, like something that happened in the RV 261 (261)