INCREDIBLE OBTUSENESS
shaking hands with himself courteously, "have you yet carried out your bold suggestion?" and so acute was his anxiety for her reply that he continued to hold his hand unconsciously until Fa Fei turned away her face in very becoming confusion.
"Alas, O my dragon-hearted one," she replied at length, "I have indeed dared to read the scroll, but how shall this person's inelegant lips utter so detestable a truth?"
"It is already revealed." said Hien, striving to conceal from her his bitterness. "When the list of competitors at the last examination is publicly proclaimed to-morrow at the four gates of the city, the last name to be announced will again, and for the eleventh time, be that of the degraded Hien."
"Beloved," exclaimed Fa Fei, resolved that as she could not honourably deny that her Hien's name was again indeed the last one to appear she would endeavour to lead his mind subtly away to the contemplation of more pleasurable thoughts, "it is as you have said, but although your name is the last, it is by far the most dignified and romantic-sounding of all, nor is there another throughout the list which can be compared to it for the ornamental grace of its flowing curves."
"Nevertheless," replied Hien, in a violent access of self-contempt, "it is a name of abandoned omen and is destined only to reach the ears of posterity to embellish the proverb of scorn, 'The lame duck should avoid the ploughed field.' Can there—can there by no chance have been some hope-inspiring error?"
"Thus were the names inscribed on the parchment which after the public announcement will be affixed
to the Hall of Ten Thousand Lustres," replied Fa Fei.
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