Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/218

 few moments, or in less mental turbulence, her half-awakened memory might have caught up a broken thread, a forgotten acquaintance; but Wu spoke, and in the tension of her anxiety the chance passed.

"Mrs. Gregory," Wu Li Chang began, deferentially bowing and going a little nearer, "I am sorry to be compelled to ask your presence, but, before I explain, will you take this weapon from me? You see"—-he laughed a little, lightly—"I present it to you with the barrel toward my own breast—but"—and this he added with quiet emphasis—"do not give it to your husband." As he indicated Gregory he gave him a straight look. "I trust to your honor." And he bowed again as he held the pistol out towards her.

She took it wonderingly, and held it so. She was not one of the women who have an exaggerated fear of weapons, but neither was she one of those who rather affect them. She had never hunted, and she had never practiced pistol shooting (Hilda had done both). Ordinarily Florence Gregory would have declined to hold a revolver. But she took this and held it steadily—puzzled but not afraid. She was in an abject terror for her boy that left no room for petty, personal, bodily qualms.

"What—what is all this?" she said ruefully. "Robert, what have you been doing?"

He sighed heavily before he answered her. "Mr. Wu has rather over-reached me in—a little transaction."

"Oh! pardon, pardon," Wu protested pleasantly. "You over-reached yourself. May we be seated?" he asked Florence Gregory; and as she sat down he drew himself a chair conveniently towards her, and convenient for an unimpeded view of Gregory. "I called here to-*day," he continued suavely, "at your husband's invitation, on a matter of grave importance."