Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/128

 I don't see him about anywhere, and I particularly want to see him."

"In that San Fong make a mistake," Nang Ping said quietly. But she had risen to her feet in evident distress, though she controlled it bravely, and the others had all risen too, as if her sudden motion was a one that prompted them. Even Gregory saw that he had made a faux pas, and looked awkwardly towards his wife, saying, "Oh! well, maybe he did, but I don't believe it. I'm not educated up to green tea and chop-sticks, but I've lived in China off and on some good few years now, and I understand your lingo right enough, at least the 'pigeon' variety of it, and that's what the gardener said, and if you ask me, he savvied what he was talking about."

Low Soong had slipped round to Nang's side, and stood very close to it.

"Robert," his wife said bitterly, "I really don't know which is worse, a bull in a china-shop or you in a Chinese lady's garden. You make one understand why they call us foreign devils." He shrugged his big shoulders sulkily in reply, and moved off to the pond, whistling unconcernedly.

Mrs. Gregory followed him, and he turned towards Nang and said patronisingly (but that was unintentional—he couldn't help it), "It's really quite a charming place, Miss Wu, 'pon my word it is—charming. Quite Oriental, isn't it?" He paused at that to let them all appreciate his unique discovery, and wondered impatiently why the dickens Carruthers grinned. "I suppose every country has the landscape that suits it best, but there are some little bits of England that take a lot of beating."

"The light is failing now," Florence said—she had