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 their young. Fathers dote, brood, fear, suffer." He ended with a slight, bitter laugh that was a sneer and frightened the woman oddly, and then he added smoothly, imperturbably, "I was about to say, Mrs. Gregory, that that music, performed in your honor, is one of our classical love-songs."

"Really," she responded lamely. "Well, I hope your love-making is not so" She broke off, painfully at a loss, and turned her head away.

Wu, still standing, leaned towards her, resting his hands on the table between them. "Not so—violent?" he suggested with a leer, "Displeasing? Passionate? What was the word you were about to use, Mrs. Gregory?" He almost whispered her name.

"Oh! Mr. Wu!" Florence exclaimed, rising hysterically—the torture was telling on her cruelly now; the handkerchief was torn and knotted—"please have mercy on a mother's agony!"

Wu Li Chang bent down, across the table still, and laid a hand very gently on hers. At his touch her self-control, already worn to a thread, snapped, and she screamed violently. Wu moved his fingers softly across her wrist, and smiled down at her amiably. "I'll scream the house down!" she gasped pantingly. Wu looked at her calmly, shook his head deprecatingly, and folded his hands upon his arms beneath his sleeves. Nothing answered her cry of terror—unless the absolute stillness of the garden did, or its rich, penetrating perfume. "I'm sorry," she murmured distractedly, recognizing her mistake, and that to show fear would both affront him and invite annoyance. "I didn't mean that," she said, choking back a second scream; "I only mean that—oh! I'm tortured by all this suspense." In spite of her new resolve, a low sob broke from her, and she huddled down