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 CHAPTER XXXIV

"The lady has arrived," Ah Sing said with an obeisance, and speaking, of course, as he always did to his master, in Chinese; "she is coming through the honorable garden."

"Show her in." Ah Sing went out again, leaving open the wide sliding doors through which he had come. And Wu, too, went from the room, lifting his hands high in symbol to the altar as he passed it. He left the room through its fourth door and closed it close behind him. He had gone into his sleeping-room.

In a few moments Ah Sing returned, bowing at the threshold for Mrs. Gregory to enter. She came in eagerly, Ah Wong close at her heel. Absorbed as the mother was in her own exquisite anxiety and in the paramount errand that had brought her here, still she was struck with the distinction and the character of the room; and at any time less engrossed it would have delighted and absorbed her. She had seen many rich interiors in Europe, and not a little of colonial extravagance in home decoration, but she had not seen such luxury as this. And the quiet taste of the place, for some reason, surprised her, but not more than its spotless cleanliness did.

Ah Sing watched the English lady with inscrutable eyes as she moved a little curiously about the room; and to Ah Wong, watching him, it was significant that