Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/250

 "No"—Wu smiled faintly—"they do not know. She is coming here, your mother, as my guest—to learn, amongst other things, the truth about you!"

"If you could spare me that!" Basil said hoarsely. "We have been more like brother and sister," he pleaded.

Wu took it up as a cue, and on it began, with a little leer, the hideous part he had planned to play. "Yes, she is very young"

"Tell my father, if you will"

"Your father?" Wu said sharply.

"Yes, tell him, but"

"I have nothing to do with your father!" Wu Li Chang said sternly, each word an emphasis.

"But you said"

"I said that your mother was coming here. She is coming—alone. She is a devoted mother. I am going to test her devotion."

Again there was a pause—while the horror sank in. Basil Gregory did not grasp it at first, and could not grasp it very quickly. But it crept into his soul little by little, and while its agony seized and strangled him, Wu stood and watched him intently, Wu with the panther light of intensest hatred in his half-closed eyes.

"You—you fiend!" The Englishwoman's son screamed it, writhing.

Ah Sing slid a little nearer him. The two guarding moved on his either side a little closer. But neither on their faces nor on Ah Sing's was there the slightest expression or any sign of interest.

"Why?" Wu laughed as he spoke. "Other countries, other ways! In China a daughter often sacrifices herself for a father, a son for his mother—to the utmost. You—English—reverse it, and the mother sacrifices herself for her son."