her voice low and tense, "will you help us?"
"You, if I can—but—I am not sure if" He broke off and gave Mrs. Gregory a little inquiring gesture that said, "Are you going to let her stand there?" For Ah Wong had come steadily across the room until she stood quite at his elbow.
"Wait, Ah Wong," her mistress told her, with a gesture of the head towards the door. And Ah Wong moved back as quietly as she had come, and waited just inside the door, immovable, expressionless. But not for an instant, never once, did her eyes leave Wu Li Chang. A critic at a "first night" could not have watched and listened more closely or seemed less interested.
Ah Wong and the mandarin were ill matched, but better matched than he and Robert Gregory had been.
Mrs. Gregory wasted no time on preliminaries. She forgot that he was a stranger. That he was man, she woman, she forgot that she was English and he Chinese. She had but one thought, one memory—Basil. "Oh! Mr. Wu," she pleaded—urged—at once, "if you can help us, if you could even give us your advice as to the best way of appealing to the natives or of offering a reward"
"Ah!" Wu interjected gently, "for your sake, Mrs. Gregory—as his mother—I would do much." He picked up his hat and moved towards the door. But Ah Wong did not trouble to move from it—she knew that he was not going yet. But Florence Gregory did not know—and she followed him a step. Wu bowed to her with the utmost courtesy, and said—as if considering the situation—"Well, we must meet again."
"Oh! I hope so, Mr. Wu. But now—when every moment is so precious"
"I am thinking, Mrs. Gregory, and I will not waste one of them, you may trust me."
