ground to powder, and the blame, which he might incur, be made ten thousand times more serious than it is? These things are all commonplace trifles; but won't Mr. Secundus' name and reputation be subsequently done for for life? Secondly, it's no easy thing for your ladyship to see anything of our master. A proverb also says: 'The perfect man makes provision beforehand;' so wouldn't it be better that we should, this very minute, adopt such steps as will enable us to guard against such things? Your ladyship has much to attend to, and you couldn't, of course, think of these things in a moment. And as for us, it would have been well and good, had they never suggested themselves to our minds; but since they have, we should be the more to blame did we not tell you anything about them, Madame. Of late, I have racked my mind, both day and night on this score; and though I couldn't very well confide to any one, my lamp alone knows everything!'
After listening to these words, Madame Wang felt as if she had been blasted by thunder and struck by lightning; and, as they fitted so appositely with the incident connected with Chin Ch'uan-erh, her heart was more than ever fired with boundless affection for Hsi Jen. 'My dear girl,' she promptly smiled, 'it's you, who are gifted with enough foresight to be able to think of these things so thoroughly. Yet, did I not also think of them? But so busy have I been these several times that they slipped from my memory. What you've told me to-day, however, has brought me to my senses! It's, thanks to you, that the reputation of me, his mother, and of him, my son, is preserved intact! I really never had the faintest idea that you were so excellent! But you had better go now; I know of a way. Yet, just another word. After your remarks to me, I'll hand him over to your charge; please be careful of him. If you preserve him from harm, it will be tantamount to preserving me from harm, and I shall certainly not be ungrateful to you for it.'
Hsi Jen said several consecutive yes's, and went on her way. She got back just in time to see Pao-yue awake. Hsi Jen explained all about the scented water; and, so intensely delighted was Pao-yue, that he at once asked that some should be mixed and brought to him to taste. In very deed, he found it unusually fragrant and good. But as his heart was a prey to anxiety on Tai-yue's behalf, he was full of longings to despatch some one to look her up. He was, however, afraid of Hsi Jen. Readily therefore he devised a plan to first get Hsi Jen out of the way, by despatching her to Pao-ch'ai's, to borrow a book. After Hsi Jen's departure, he forthwith called Ch'ing Wen. 'Go,' he said, 'over to Miss Lin's and see what she's up to. Should she inquire about me, all you need tell her is that I'm all right.'
'What shall I go empty-handed for?' rejoined Ch'ing Wen. 'If I were, at least, to give her a message, it would look as if I had gone for something.'
'I have no message that you can give her,' added Pao-yue.
'If it can't be that,' suggested Ch'ing Wen; 'I might either take something over or fetch something. Otherwise, when I get there, what excuse will I be able to find?'
After some cogitation, Pao-yue stretched out his hand and, laying hold of a couple of handkerchiefs, he threw them to Ch'ing Wen. 'These will do,' he smiled. 'Just tell her that I bade you take them to her.'
'This is strange!' exclaimed Ch'ing Wen. 'Will she accept these two half worn-out handkerchiefs! She'll besides get angry and say that you were making fun of her.'
'Don't worry yourself about that;' laughed Pao-yue. 'She will certainly know what I mean.'
Ch'ing Wen, at this rejoinder, had no help but to take the handkerchiefs and to go to the Hsiao Hsiang lodge, where she discovered Ch'un Hsien in the act of hanging out handkerchiefs on the railings to dry. As soon as she saw her walk in, she vehemently waved her hand. 'She's gone to sleep!' she said. Ch'ing Wen, however, entered the room. It was in perfect darkness. There was not even so much as a lantern burning, and Tai-yue was already ensconced in bed. 'Who is there?' she shouted.
'It's Ch'ing Wen!' promptly replied Ch'ing Wen.
'What are you up to?' Tai-yue inquired.
'Mr. Secundus,' explained Ch'ing Wen, 'sends you some handkerchiefs, Miss.'
Tai-yue's spirits sunk as soon as she caught her reply. 'What can he have sent me handkerchiefs for?' she secretly reasoned within herself. 'Who gave him these handkerchiefs?' she then asked aloud. 'They must be fine ones, so tell him to keep them and give them to some one else; for I don't need such things at present.'
'They're not new,' smiled Ch'ing Wen. 'They are of an ordinary kind, and old.'
Hearing this, Lin Tai-yue felt downcast. But after minutely searching her heart, she at last suddenly grasped his meaning and she hastily observed: 'Leave them and go your way.'
Ch'ing Wen was compelled to put them down; and turning round, she betook herself back again. But much though she turned things over in her mind during the whole of her way homewards, she did not succeed in solving their import.
When Tai-yue guessed the object of the handkerchief, her very soul unawares flitted from her. 'As Pao-yue has gone to such pains,' she pondered, 'to try and probe this dejection of mine, I have, on one hand, sufficient cause to feel gratified; but as there's no knowing what my dejection will come to in the future there is, on the other, enough to make me sad. Here he abruptly and deliberately sends me a couple of handkerchiefs; and, were it not that he has divined my inmost feelings, the mere sight of these handkerchiefs would be enough to make me treat the whole thing as ridiculous. The secret exchange of presents between us,' she went on to muse, 'fills me also with fears; and the thought that those tears, which I am ever so fond of shedding to myself, are of no avail, drives me likewise to blush with shame.'
And by dint of musing and reflecting, her heart began, in a moment, to bubble over with such excitement that, much against her will, her thoughts in their superabundance rolled on incessantly. So speedily directing that a lamp should be lighted, she little concerned herself about avoiding suspicion, shunning the use of names, or any other such things, and set to work and rubbed the ink, soaked the pen, and then wrote the following stanzas on the two old handkerchiefs:
Vain in my eyes the tears collect; those tears in vain they flow,
Which I in secret shed; they slowly drop; but for whom though?
The silk kerchiefs, which he so kindly troubled to give me,
How ever could they not with anguish and distress fill me?
The second ran thus:
Like falling pearls or rolling gems, they trickle on the sly.
Daily I have no heart for aught; listless all day am I.
As on my pillow or sleeves' edge I may not wipe them dry,
I let them dot by dot, and drop by drop to run freely.
And the third:
The coloured thread cannot contain the pearls cov'ring my face.
Tears were of old at Hsiang Chiang shed, but faint has waxed each
trace.
Outside my window thousands of bamboos, lo, also grow,
But whether they be stained with tears or not, I do not know.
Lin Tai-yue was still bent upon going on writing, but feeling her whole body burn like fire, and her face scalding hot, she advanced towards the cheval-glass, and, raising the embroidered cover, she looked in. She saw at a glance that her cheeks wore so red that they, in very truth, put even the peach blossom to the shade. Yet little did she dream that from this date her illness would assume a more serious phase. Shortly, she threw herself on the bed, and, with the handkerchiefs still grasped in her hand, she was lost in a reverie.
Putting her aside, we will now take up our story with Hsi Jen. She went to pay a visit to Pao-ch'ai, but as it happened, Pao-ch'ai was not in the garden, but had gone to look up her mother. Hsi Jen, however, could not very well come back with empty hands so she waited until the second watch, when Pao-ch'ai eventually returned to her quarters.
Indeed, so correct an estimate of Hsueeh P'an's natural disposition did Pao-ch'ai ever have, that from an early moment she entertained within herself some faint suspicion that it must have been Hsueeh P'an, who had instigated some person or other to come and lodge a complaint against Pao-yue. And when she also unexpectedly heard Hsi Jen's disclosures on the subject, she became more positive in her surmises. The one, who had, in fact, told Hsi Jen was Pei Ming. But Pei Ming too had arrived at the conjecture in his own mind, and could not adduce any definite proof, so that every one treated his statements as founded partly on mere suppositions, and partly on actual facts; but, despite this, they felt quite certain that it was (Hsueeh P'an) who had intrigued.
Hsueeh P'an had always enjoyed this reputation; but on this particular instance the harm was not, actually,
