CHAPTER VII
NOT CONCERNED WITH ANY PARTICULAR ATTRIBUTE OF THOSE WHO ARE INVOLVED
Unendurable was the intermingling of hopes and fears with which Kai Lung sought the shutter on the next occasion after the avowal of Hwa-mei's devoted strategy. While repeatedly assuring himself that it would have been better to submit to piecemeal slicing without a protesting word rather than that she should incur so formidable a risk, he was compelled as often to admit that when once her mind had formed its image no effort on his part would have held her back. Doubtless Hwa-mei readily grasped the emotion that would possess the one whose welfare was now her chief concern, for without waiting to gum her hair or to gild her lips she hastened to the spot beneath the wall at the earliest moment that Kai Lung could be there.
"Seven marble tombstones are lifted from off my chest!" exclaimed the story-teller when he could greet her. "How did your subterfuge proceed, and with what satisfaction was the history of Weng Cho received?"
"That," replied Hwa-mei modestly, "will provide the matter for an autumn tale, when seated around a pine-cone fire. In the meanwhile this protracted ordeal takes an ambiguous bend."
"To what further end does the malignity of the
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