Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/208

 He did not admire Hilda's picture, and it was far too much trouble to pretend an appreciation he did not feel. And he thought her dress, or lack of it, disgusting, precisely as he had thought the décolletage of "honorable" (and entirely "honest") English ladies abominable when he had been a boy at Portland Place. And his Chinese taste (good or bad) would never have put a picture of Nang Ping in his offices, where casual callers and mere business acquaintances might scrutinize and comment on it. He had killed his girl—this man sitting easily there; calm and imperturbable—not a week since, and neither waking nor sleeping had he regretted it—not even for an instant. But a scented bead that he had found beneath her robe, when they had lifted up what had been his only child, lay now secure in an inner pocket. He could feel it where it lay.

"On a friendly footing, Mr. Gregory?" Wu took up the broken thread. "You Westerners are truly magnanimous. 'Friendship' is usually actuated either by hope of gain or by—fear."

"Don't you trifle with me, Mister Wu," Gregory said hotly, rising and beginning to pace up and down the long room—an ugly and determined look hardening on his face—"I'll have no more of this beating about the bush. To begin with,"—controlling himself a little better: there was so much at stake—"to begin with, Mr. Wu, the mysterious disappearance of my son is only one of the long series of unexplained disasters that have recently fallen on me, and concerning which I want an explanation."

"Then why not seek it from those who can enlighten you?"

"There's no one more capable of doing that than your