Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/34

 underlings. He visited it daily after the wedding had been completed, and well scrutinized his deputies' accounts and doings. It took time. Nothing is hurried in China except the waterfalls. But Lord Wu's Pekin business was done at last, and he took his elaborate farewells of the Lis, and turned towards home, taking Wu Li Chang reluctant with him.

The boy had asked to take the baby too, even venturing to urge that she belonged to them now. (And to Muir he confided in an unreticent moment that he'd dearly like to include her in the ill-anticipated trip to England.)

The grandfather agreed that she was indeed theirs now. Of course she was. A Chinese wife is the property of her husband's patriarch. That is alphabetic Chinese fact. But they would lend her to the Lis until her husband returned from Europe. The boy grieved secretly and at heart rebelled, but outwardly he was smiling and calm, made the thrice obeisance of respect and fealty, saying, "Thy honorable will is good, and shall by me, thy worthless slave, be gladly done," took a stolid (but inwardly convulsive) leave of Mrs. Wu, fast asleep on her crimson cushion, and turned his slow feet heavily toward his homing palanquin.