Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/133

 stay, to toy, if but for a moment, by the lotus lake where he had found the dalliance sweet that had proved fatal to poor Nang Ping.

"No, no!" she told him frantically. "Not safe. Safe nowhere. Never safe again. But most dangerous here. Go! Fly, Basil, fly! Before my father's wrath falls on you, fly! Take the path by the Peacock Terrace and go."

She had infected him now with her own breathless fear, but even so he hesitated an instant longer, for she had urged him to go; and when is not the man reluctant to go whom a woman forbids to stay?

"Celeste"—he called her by the name with which he had wooed her and never wooed in vain—"little flower, our happiness has been too great, too perfect. There must be some other way: there shall!"

"None! None!" the girl said solemnly.

"I love you, dear," he whispered passionately.

"No," Nang Ping said gently, "your love has flown away from me, and the nest of my heart is cold for always now."

"It isn't true," he protested hotly. "It is not true."

"Go!"

"I will come back to you."

"No!" Nang Ping's voice was soft and clear and tender as a flute. "Go. Go, and forget."

"Then"—he lifted his hat and came towards her uncovered, his arms outstretched—"farewell, Celeste."

But she turned and moved a little away, not even facing him again. She was afraid to trust those arms, a thousand times afraid to trust herself. "Farewell to life and love," she said under her breath, smiling wanly but moving steadily towards the house.

With a cry—half remorse, half passion, and something