not sought him, or, for some time, allowed him advance, had been her chief charm for him. And on the day that he had told her that he was returning to Europe, and at once, leaving her to face their dilemma alone, she had uttered no reproach, made no outcry—just a quiet expostulation abandoned as soon as made. "You will not come back," she had said quietly, and had gone from him calmly, with dignity.
Never lover had less just cause to reproach mistress than he had to reproach or blame Nang Ping. But for his mother's sake, and, too, perhaps, for his craven own, he did, and cursed the girl who had died for him, as he raged futilely here in the pagoda, where he had taken, and she had given, her all.
It is a big thing to be a manly man.
It is a tragedy to be a woman—except when it's the very best of great good luck.
Very little of the good luck of life, very little of the joyousness of womanhood, had ever been Ah Wong's. All her life she had worked hard for scant pay and no thanks. All her life she had yearned passionately for companionship, and been lonely. From a brutal father she had escaped to a brutal husband. Her children were dead, and had not promised much while they lived. God knows, Mrs. Gregory had given her little enough—almost nothing. And yet Mrs. Gregory had given her her best time—the nearest approach to a "good time" she'd ever known. And she was pathetically grateful to have had even so much of creature comfort, such crumbs of kindness, so shabby and lukewarm a sipping of the wine of life. The Englishwoman did not even know that she had been kind to the amah. Indeed, Ah Wong had
