She had made a special and somewhat magnificent toilet for this visit, pathetically anxious to seem to pay every honor to the Chinese lady for whose social peace of mind the mandarin had seemed so anxious. Mrs. Gregory was wearing more jewelry than she had ever worn before in the daytime, so thinking to do honor to a hostess who was of the inordinately jewelry-loving Chinese race. Even the wonderful bracelet—kept until now for functions of real importance—was hidden beneath the laces of her sleeve.
The boat grated in the gritty earth, and Mrs. Gregory looked up, glad to have arrived, confident of her reception and of the wisdom of her visit.
Wu Li Chang need not have been at such pains to tempt his prey and to bait his trap. Convention did not exist for Florence Gregory now, or fear. Basil and Basil's plight left her no thought, no consciousness of lesser things. And she had as little thought of the safety or danger of her act as she had of its propriety or impropriety. But if she had known her coming at Wu's bidding to Kowloon to be as imperilled as it was, and as Ah Wong sensed it, still she would have come, as unflinchingly, for Basil. Wu Li Chang had squandered inducement needlessly. And he need not have played poor Sing Kung Yah for trumps.
That widowed gentlewoman was greatly bewildered and scarcely less perturbed. Never before had she returned home ungreeted by Nang Ping. And of Nang Ping she could hear nothing. To all her questions the servants were deaf. The honorable master would tell his honorable kinslady all to interest her in his own honorable time. To them he had commanded silence.
She could not see Low Soong; it was forbidden—for a time. Wu Li Chang she scarcely saw; and, when
