Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/230

 *creased. His tired, unsteadied hands were overflowing full, and towards dinner-time (another whiskey and soda had taken the place of tea) he deputed Murray to 'phone Mrs. Gregory that he would not be home till very late that night, if at all. Hilda had answered the 'phone, and had said, "All right," Murray reported. And Gregory grunted an acknowledgment, paying little attention, engrossed in other things.

Florence Gregory was a just and a good-humored mistress, not an indulgent one. And she was in no way of the class of women who court or accept the advice of their servants. Even in the days of her modest Oxford housekeeping, when her own youthfulness and the deficiencies of the vicarage purse would have made most girls so placed peculiarly vulnerable to the insidious encroachment of hireling "I wills," and "I won'ts," she had been truly mistress of that manse, adamant towards would-be familiarity. And that natural smooth caste hardness had not softened under the flux of travel or the sunshine of affluence. From their first quarter of an hour together she had commanded distinctly, and Ah Wong, without comment, had obeyed. During the last week Mrs. Gregory had leaned not a little on her amah, sensing in the Chinese woman, who too was a mother, a something of sympathy that even Hilda could not give her, but she had in no way abrogated any of her personal autocracy to Ah Wong or let the space of discipline between them lessen. When Ah Wong had exclaimed, "No, no, madame! Not go!" the first liberty Ah Wong had ever taken, the mistress had scarcely heard and had not heeded; but when, on their return to the Peak, the amah had again urged "Not go!" Mrs. Gregory had checked her sternly, and Ah Wong had known that it was worse than useless to repeat the entreaty.