Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/139

 Maria Theresa had worn and a ruby that had been Josephine's, a pearl that had blinked on the hand of England's Elizabeth. She had, and often wore, a diamond that Hwangti's Queen Yenfi had worn four thousand years before. And the girl's best gems had been her mother's.

And in this toyed temple of Chinese maidenhood and her father's devotion Nang Ping lay huddled on the floor, "by Love's simplicity betrayed, all soiled, low i' the dust."

Remember Nang Ping so long as you live, English Basil—while you live and after!

The day came in, a lovely, laughing day of perfect Chinese summer, and Kwanyin Ko blinked and grinned in the early radiance.

Nang Ping rose up a little and knelt before the joss, praying, as she had never prayed before, the old, old prayer of tortured womanhood, Magdalene's petition, echoing, moaning in every corner of earth, girdling the world with a hymn of shame and with terrible entreaty, the saddest—save one other—of all prayers; never to be answered on earth, never to be disregarded or coldly heard in heaven.

And in another room, ko'towed before an uglier, sterner joss—the God of Justice—Wu the mandarin was praying too.

And in the pagoda—for it was there that it had been Wu's humor to prison him—Basil Gregory was praying, trying to remember words of simple, tender supplication that his mother had taught him in England when he was a little child.