strange thing for a Chinese woman of her caste to do. And as he looked, she read his face and saw the tragedy hidden there. But Ah Wong and the Mandarin Wu had met before.
The Chinese clerk had slid off his stool and crept cringing towards Wu—cringing, almost grovelling. Wu snarled at him noiselessly, and the fellow almost crawled from the room; and Murray went after him and closed the door. Holman had already closed the other. The duellists were alone.
They had no seconds.
Neither spoke. The clock tocked on.
Outside a new note, a note of exultation, had come into the incessant coolie chorus; and Wu's jinrickshaw man—for Wu had not come in state, but very simply—squatted between the shafts and smoked.
Gregory continued to write. Wu watched him with a faint, contemptuous smile, and then he made a slight gesture towards the Englishman. Gregory did not see, but he felt it, and he obeyed it, and fidgeted uncomfortably, and then spoke, saying, still writing and without looking up, "Sit down, Wu."
A deeper smile flitted across the Chinese face. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Gregory?"
At the man's voice Gregory almost started—it was at once so masterful, so pleasantly pitched and so highly bred. It was a clear voice—as the Chinese voice almost invariably is—but it was deep and rich, which in the Chinese is very rare. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Gregory?" Wu had said.
And Gregory recognized and regretted his blunder, But he stood by it—there was nothing else to do, he thought—and said again, "Sit down, Wu."
"I would suggest," the Chinese remarked smoothly,
