Page:Frank Owen - The Wind That Tramps the World (1929).djvu/55

 Fung who was the greatest Jade Master throughout China despite his comparative youth and extremely boyish appearance.

Countless were the hours the two spent together absorbed in the brilliance and glory of strange gems and also on the part of Woo Fung, in the loveliness of flower-like Shun Kao. Throughout China the position of woman is subjective. She never intrudes on her lord and master, on her father or her husband. But the house of Mu Kao was carelessly run. Shun Kao was permitted to roam about at will. He scarcely ever noticed her, nor did she intrude upon his meditations.

Small wonder, then, that as Woo Fung sat in the Lacquer Room of the house of Mu Kao his mind should have drifted off to the purple Hills of Dream. A fragrant perfume permeated the air. Pungent lanterns gleamed and glimmered. Shun Kao glided about like a gorgeous wonder-flower. Her lips were red like cherries. Her eyes shone in star-splendor. Her whole appearance spelled enticement, girl of witchery and wistfulness, girl of poetry and rich love.

While Woo Fung and Shun Kao seldom if ever spoke to one another, he wooed her with his eyes and it seemed to him as though there were an echoing response in hers. Although they did not speak, their souls were in communion. The fragrance of love spread about them like a mist of azure, binding them together in intangible nets of loveliness. It made a genius of the Jade-carver poet, Woo Fung. From that moment