Pao-ch'ai was also aware of the fact, but she simply nodded her head assentingly and did not say who it was. Pao-yue likewise expressed his assent by shaking his head, but he too did not presume to speak out. Shih Hsiang- yuen, however, readily took up the conversation. 'He resembles,' she interposed, 'cousin Lin's face!' When this remark reached Pao-yue's ear, he hastened to cast an angry scowl at Hsiang-yuen, and to make her a sign; while the whole party, upon hearing what had been said, indulged in careful and minute scrutiny of (the lad); and as they all began to laugh: 'The resemblance is indeed striking!' they exclaimed.
After a while, they parted; and when evening came Hsiang-yuen directed Ts'ui Lue to pack up her clothes.
'What's the hurry?' Ts'ui Lue asked. 'There will be ample time to pack up, on the day on which we go!'
'We'll go to-morrow,' Hsiang-yuen rejoined; 'for what's the use of remaining here any longer-to look at people's mouths and faces?'
Pao-yue, at these words, lost no time in pressing forward.
'My dear cousin,' he urged; 'you're wrong in bearing me a grudge! My cousin Lin is a girl so very touchy, that though every one else distinctly knew (of the resemblance), they wouldn't speak out; and all because they were afraid that she would get angry; but unexpectedly out you came with it, at a moment when off your guard; and how ever couldn't she but feel hurt? and it's because I was in dread that you would give offence to people that I then winked at you; and now here you are angry with me; but isn't that being ungrateful to me? Had it been any one else, would I have cared whether she had given offence to even ten; that would have been none of my business!'
Hsiang-yuen waved her hand: 'Don't,' she added, 'come and tell me these flowery words and this specious talk, for I really can't come up to your cousin Lin. If others poke fun at her, they all do so with impunity, while if I say anything, I at once incur blame. The fact is I shouldn't have spoken of her, undeserving as I am; and as she's the daughter of a master, while I'm a slave, a mere servant girl, I've heaped insult upon her!'
'And yet,' pleaded Pao-yue, full of perplexity, 'I had done it for your sake; and through this, I've come in for reproach. But if it were with an evil heart I did so, may I at once become ashes, and be trampled upon by ten thousands of people!'
'In this felicitous firstmonth,' Hsiang-yuen remonstrated, 'you shouldn't talk so much reckless nonsense! All these worthless despicable oaths, disjointed words, and corrupt language, go and tell for the benefit of those mean sort of people, who in everything take pleasure in irritating others, and who keep you under their thumb! But mind don't drive me to spit contemptuously at you.'
As she gave utterance to these words, she betook herself in the inner room of dowager lady Chia's suite of apartments, where she lay down in high dudgeon, and, as Pao-yue was so heavy at heart, he could not help coming again in search of Tai-yue; but strange to say, as soon as he put his foot inside the doorway, he was speedily hustled out of it by Tai-yue, who shut the door in his face.
Pao-yue was once more unable to fathom her motives, and as he stood outside the window, he kept on calling out: 'My dear cousin,' in a low tone of voice; but Tai-yue paid not the slightest notice to him so that Pao-yue became so melancholy that he drooped his head, and was plunged in silence. And though Hsi Jen had, at an early hour, come to know the circumstances, she could not very well at this juncture tender any advice.
Pao-yue remained standing in such a vacant mood that Tai-yue imagined that he had gone back; but when she came to open the door she caught sight of Pao-yue still waiting in there; and as Tai-yue did not feel justified to again close the door, Pao-yue consequently followed her in.
'Every thing has,' he observed, 'a why and a wherefore; which, when spoken out, don't even give people pain; but you will rush into a rage, and all without any rhyme! but to what really does it owe its rise?'
'It's well enough, after all, for you to ask me,' Tai-yue rejoined with an indifferent smile, 'but I myself don't know why! But am I here to afford you people amusement that you will compare me to an actress, and make the whole lot have a laugh at me?'
'I never did liken you to anything,' Pao-yue protested, 'neither did I ever laugh at you! and why then will you get angry with me?'
'Was it necessary that you should have done so much as made the comparison,' Tai-yue urged, 'and was there any need of even any laughter from you? why, though you mayn't have likened me to anything, or had a laugh at my expense, you were, yea more dreadful than those who did compare me (to a singing girl) and ridiculed me!'
Pao-yue could not find anything with which to refute the argument he had just heard, and Tai-yue went on to say. 'This offence can, anyhow, be condoned; but, what is more, why did you also wink at Yuen Erh? What was this idea which you had resolved in your mind? wasn't it perhaps that if she played with me, she would be demeaning herself, and making herself cheap? She's the daughter of a duke or a marquis, and we forsooth the mean progeny of a poor plebeian family; so that, had she diverted herself with me, wouldn't she have exposed herself to being depreciated, had I, perchance, said anything in retaliation? This was your idea wasn't it? But though your purpose was, to be sure, honest enough, that girl wouldn't, however, receive any favours from you, but got angry with you just as much as I did; and though she made me also a tool to do you a good turn, she, on the contrary, asserts that I'm mean by nature and take pleasure in irritating people in everything! and you again were afraid lest she should have hurt my feelings, but, had I had a row with her, what would that have been to you? and had she given me any offence, what concern would that too have been of yours?'
When Pao-yue heard these words, he at once became alive to the fact that she too had lent an ear to the private conversation he had had a short while back with Hsiang-yuen: 'All because of my, fears,' he carefully mused within himself, 'lest these two should have a misunderstanding, I was induced to come between them, and act as a mediator; but I myself have, contrary to my hopes, incurred blame and abuse on both sides! This just accords with what I read the other day in the Nan Hua Ching. 'The ingenious toil, the wise are full of care; the good-for-nothing seek for nothing, they feed on vegetables, and roam where they list; they wander purposeless like a boat not made fast!' 'The mountain trees,' the text goes on to say, 'lead to their own devastation; the spring (conduces) to its own plunder; and so on.' And the more he therefore indulged in reflection, the more depressed he felt. 'Now there are only these few girls,' he proceeded to ponder minutely, 'and yet, I'm unable to treat them in such a way as to promote perfect harmony; and what will I forsooth do by and by (when there will be more to deal with)!'
When he had reached this point in his cogitations, (he decided) that it was really of no avail to agree with her, so that turning round, he was making his way all alone into his apartments; but Lin Tai-yue, upon noticing that he had left her side, readily concluded that reflection had marred his spirits and that he had so thoroughly lost his temper as to be going without even giving vent to a single word, and she could not restrain herself from feeling inwardly more and more irritated. 'After you've gone this time,' she hastily exclaimed, 'don't come again, even for a whole lifetime; and I won't have you either so much as speak to me!'
Pao-yue paid no heed to her, but came back to his rooms, and laying himself down on his bed, he kept on muttering in a state of chagrin; and though Hsi Jen knew full well the reasons of his dejection, she found it difficult to summon up courage to say anything to him at the moment, and she had no alternative but to try and distract him by means of irrelevant matters. 'The theatricals which you've seen to-day,' she consequently observed smiling, 'will again lead to performances for several days, and Miss Pao-ch'ai will, I'm sure, give a return feast.'
'Whether she gives a return feast or not,' Pao-yue rejoined with an apathetic smirk, 'is no concern of mine!'
When Hsi Jen perceived the tone, so unlike that of other days, with which these words were pronounced: 'What's this that you're saying?' she therefore remarked as she gave another smile. 'In this pleasant and propitious first moon, when all the ladies and young ladies are in high glee, how is it that you're again in a mood of this sort?'
'Whether the ladies and my cousins be in high spirits or not,' Pao-yue replied forcing a grin, 'is also perfectly immaterial to me.'
'They are all,' Hsi Jen added, smilingly, 'pleasant and agreeable, and were you also a little pleasant and agreeable, wouldn't it conduce to the enjoyment of the whole company?'
'What about the whole company, and they and I?' Pao-yue urged. 'They all have their mutual friendships; while I, poor fellow, all forlorn, have none to care a rap for me.'
His remarks had reached this clause, when inadvertently the tears trickled down; and Hsi Jen realising the state of mind he was in, did not venture to say anything further. But as soon as Pao-yue had reflected minutely over the sense and import of this sentence, he could not refrain from bursting forth into a loud fit of crying, and, turning
