Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/31

 swaying gently in the breeze. Even though she was not able to dance upon a man's hand, she could dance upon his heart.

Yuhan, in truth, was a graceful dancer. She rose to her feet. She tried to imagine the garden was the Imperial Court. The flowers were her subjects. In reverence they swayed toward her. As she walked slowly along a marble path, a red rain of peach blossoms fell about her shoulders. She was walking toward the Yellow Crane Pagoda where her lord and master was waiting impatiently for her. It was a rendezvous he would never forget. Once a woman had been Empress of China, a hard, cruel woman. But China could be ruled peacefully.

She walked with half-closed eyes. The Court was so dazzling she could scarcely stand the light, a court of jewels and fragrance, carpeted with grass-green rugs in designs of cassia flowers, the emblem of immortality. This dream must live as long as the Yellow River flows to the sea. In the shadow of a windswept tree she paused and gazed at the sky, clear as blue tiles. The small white clouds might be white egrets flying.

A pet monkey, from somewhere near by, chattered mournfully. She shivered. Why was the monkey's cry so sad? And why should he inject sadness into a garden that suddenly glowed like a pearl-orchid? Was it to remind her that the concubine of an Emperor's eighteenth son is, after all, merely a concubine?

Momentarily, her thoughts reflected the monkey's cry, but not for long. The fragrance of the flowers