The room into which Madame Fan-ti showed them was not a large one, but it was a lovely setting for a young and beautiful woman. Its walls were covered with yellow silk—not the muddy Imperial yellow but a bright golden colour—which had just here and there a butterfly embroidered upon it. The carpet was a paler gold with a broad edging and intricate lozenges in blue. The furniture was light in design, and on its larger surfaces there was engraved a pattern of branches with inlaid chips of mother of pearl to represent almond blossom.
It was evident that the Princess had been prepared for her visitors, as she was dressed and bejewelled with considerable richness; but no doubt Madame Fan-ti had advised her that this first interview with them might prove easier if she laid no special stress on her royalty, for she received them informally seated on the edge of a dragon-headed day-bed.
Nevertheless, Kâo and A-lu-te at once went down on their knees and, performing the ancient k’o-t’ou, knocked their heads three times on the floor at her feet. With a pretty gesture she smilingly signed to them first to rise then to be seated in chairs near her.
Gregory had remained with the Lins in the background, and contented himself with a deep bow; but she quickly signalled to them all to be seated. She was, he thought, undoubtedly a good-looking girl, but she appeared somewhat older than he had expected. Her face, also, had something slightly un-Chinese about it. Obviously the financial strain that she had shared with her mother while living in America had aged her a little beyond her twenty years, and her Manchu descent accounted for her strong nose and the lack of fullness in her lips.
Kâo had already launched into an account of the island from which they had come, and the origin of its colonisation. As she encouraged him with understanding nods from time to time, he continued for about half an hour, and wound up with the reason why they had come so far to find her.
When he had finished she looked inquiringly at Lin Wân, and he said gravely, ‘Illustrious lady, this is a weighty decision for one of your tender years to be called on to make. Your Imperial blood carries with it certain obligations. If, in normal times, it fell to your lot to ascend the throne of our ancient Empire, there could be no excuse for your attempting to resist the divine command. But this is a matter of inclination rather than duty. Should you feel yourself capable of filling the unusual and exalted position that is offered you, your doing so will bring happiness to a considerable number of excellent people; so you would be wrong to refuse it. On the other hand, should you be troubled by grave doubts of your fitness to reign over this island kingdom, and prefer to continue to accept, as long as it is available, the few amenities of my humble home, no blame whatever can attach to your refusal of this offer.’
Gregory felt that Lin Wân could not have put the matter more fairly, and he awaited the Princess’s reply with the greatest interest.
Picking up a brush from a writing set on a small table conveniently near her, she laboriously drew some characters on a long slip of paper, then handed it to Kâo.
For a moment he regarded it with a puzzled frown, then Lin Wân looked over his shoulder, smiled and said, ‘I notice an improvement; but I fear the Princess has not yet learned to draw our complicated characters very clearly. Naturally, she has no difficulty in understanding the spoken word; but, you see, to transmit Chinese by the sign language used by the dumb is extremely laborious. As Madame Août’s second tongue was French they always used that when together, and when other people were present the Princess wrote her replies to them in that language. Fortunately I am well acquainted with French myself; so since she became my ward she has also used it to write her replies to me, and I think it would be as well if, for a time at least, she did so with you.’
Having followed their conversation with an anxious look, Josephine picked up a fountain pen and another piece of paper; and began to write on it in a large sprawling hand.
She was still writing when Kâo muttered unhappily, ‘This is most unfortunate. I have never learnt French, and know only the few phrases I picked up during business trips to Paris and while on holidays in France.’ Turning to A-lu-te he added, ‘You do not speak French either, do you?’
She shook her head. ‘No, uncle. I can neither speak nor read it.’
Seeing the look of distress that had come over Josephine’s face, Gregory came to the rescue and addressed her in French:
‘Your Highness will perceive that I speak French fluently. Should you decide to return with us to the island, during the journey I should be honoured to act as your interpreter.’
Her expression immediately brightened, and for a moment it seemed as though she was about to speak, but she made only a little throaty noise. Then she finished what she was writing and handed the slip to Gregory.
The message was ill-spelt and ungrammatical, which told him that she could never have learnt French properly; but he suddenly remembered that her affliction had debarred her from going to school, so she must have picked it up colloquially from her mother. However, her meaning was quite clear, and he gave a free rendering of it in Chinese for the benefit of Kâo and A-lu-te.
‘The Princess writes that she is most sensible of the high honour that you propose for her; but she is deeply indebted to Mr. Lin Wân for having saved her from the Communists, and has become very attached to him and his wife; so she would be loath to leave them. She asks that you should give her time to think the matter over.’
Kâo replied to her by explaining the danger in which the yacht lay of being forcibly requisitioned by the Communists each time she entered Chinese waters. The journey from the coast had taken somewhat longer than they had anticipated, so thirty-one days had already elapsed since they had left her. That meant that they would miss her on her first return to the old mouth of the Hwang-ho, and could hope to catch her on her second return, a week later, only if they started back within the next two or three days.
In answer to this the Princess drew a few simple strokes which embodied the meaning, ‘Sunset tomorrow.’
Assured now of receiving her decision as soon as it was reasonably possible to expect it, Kâo became much more cheerful, and talked to her for some time of the beauties of the island, its riches, and the secure, orderly, peaceful life led by its people.
Scribbling on her block in French, she asked a number of questions about it, and wrote a pretty compliment to A-lu-te upon the unusual colour of her golden eyes; all of which were translated by either Lin Wân or Gregory. Then, as this somewhat difficult conversation began to flag, Madame Fan-ti said that Josephine must be tired from so much excitement. On this excuse they wished her good night and bowed themselves from her room.
Outside the women’s quarters they found Tû-lai patiently waiting for them. As it was still early A-lu-te and Gregory accepted his eager invitation to spend an hour in his apartments before going to bed. On arriving there, he at once went over to put on the gramophone; but A-lu-te disappointed his hopes of dancing with her, as she declared that tonight her mind was so full of the Princess that she preferred to talk.
She was much worried by the thought that not understanding French was going to add greatly to the difficulty of her proving a satisfactory lady-in-waiting if the Princess decided to return with them. But Gregory told her not to worry too much about that, as Josephine had never even had a maid of her own until a few months ago; and that having been brought up in the United States she must at least be able to write simple replies in English. They agreed that she had a pleasant personality, and that her manners, while lacking the finesse of a high-born Chinese, were as good as could be expected from a young woman with an affliction that had debarred her from any social life, even in San Francisco.
Tû-lai took little part in the conversation, and appeared somewhat unwilling to discuss the Princess; but when A-lu-te asked him if he thought she would accept the invitation to become Empress, he replied with considerable feeling:
‘She will be a fool if she doesn’t! Your island sounds a paradise. How I wish that my grandfather had gone there with yours, and that we Lins now made an eighth to your Seven Families.’
‘If we had, intermarriage would probably have made you my cousin,’ she smiled.
The quick glance he gave her suggested that he would have liked to aim at a closer relationship; so she looked hastily away and hurried on. ‘All the same, I can’t agree with you that the Princess would be a fool not to accept. Of course, such a position must be tempting to any woman’s vanity; but, unless she is far more clever than she appears to be, the amount of power she could wield would be very limited. Then, although the island may sound a paradise, women are still looked upon only as play-things there, and being confined to it for life is a big price to pay for the security it offers. She is obviously happy here, and there are few pleasures or luxuries with which we could provide her that she does not already enjoy. So, to my mind, she has nothing to gain by leaving all this for a new life among strangers.’
‘Ah! But you have forgotten one thing.’ Tû-lai waved a hand towards the costly appointments of his room. ‘How long will all this last?’
‘You mean that the Communists are gradually strengthening their hold on China,’ Gregory asked, ‘and in time will even grip such remote districts as this?’
Tû-lai gave a bitter smile. ‘It is no longer a question of “in time”. They have already done so.’
Gregory raised an eyebrow. ‘You surprise me. We saw very little of them, even in the densely populated provinces further east.’
‘That was because you came by the river and spent only a few hours in one or two of the towns. Even so, you were extraordinarily lucky not to have run into more of them than you did.’
‘They don’t seem to have made any great impression on the country.’
‘Believe me, they have; although you would not have realised it, because you wisely refrained from talking to people, and did not look below the surface. The devastation caused by many years of war and lack of resources has pre-prevented them from carrying out their grandiose plans for creating a new China; but they have made very skilful use of such assets as they have.’
‘In what way?’ Gregory asked.
‘For one, they have been wise enough to realise that China’s billions have always been near the starvation mark. Formerly, after a bad harvest thousands of poor families were left with insufficient rice to see them through to the next. For them it became a terrible temptation to eat the rice they had put aside for seed, and many of them did. The result was starvation from which thousands died annually. Now, the government buys all the rice, and stores enough of it to ensure that no one starves and everyone has sufficient for fresh sowings. Think what that means to the peasants who have lived for many generations in fear of an untimely death. In addition, the Communists have given the first priority in industry to the manufacture and import of agricultural machinery, to further better the peasants’ lot. You must anyhow have seen some of the new ploughs and tractors during your journey.’
‘We saw a few,’ Gregory agreed, ‘just near the towns.’
Tû-lai shrugged. ‘A few years ago you would not have seen one, and China’s agricultural areas cover hundreds of thousands of square miles. Those families who have not yet been given motor ploughs have at least seen them, and are working like devils for a government that promises that all shall be given them in a not-far-distant future.’
‘Then it seems that the Communists are bringing great good to China,’ A-lu-te put in.
‘Up to a point, yes,’ Tû-lai replied. ‘But we shall have to pay for it later, when all culture and freedom of thought has been destroyed, and the Communist ideology forced upon our whole people. To bring that about they are spending vast sums on education, and every teacher in every school is a Communist. Their propaganda too is most skilfully directed and pervades every walk of life. And no one any longer dares to argue against the stream of lies they pour forth, because China is already a Police State, with spies everywhere. We know that they have several of them in this house; but it would be as much as our lives are worth to attempt to expel them.’
‘Why then,’ Gregory asked, ‘if they are already so powerful, do they allow you to go on living here in such luxury? In other countries they have never hesitated to strip wealthy people of their riches.’
Tû-lai shrugged again. ‘Our caravans still do a big trade with Russia, behind which lies centuries of experience; and they know that we run our ships much more efficiently than they could do themselves. We are already reduced to the status of their agents, and face is saved on both sides by a hypocritical pretence that we are enthusiastic supporters of the regime. They would gain little by turning us into a State concern as they already take the lion’s share of our profits. No doubt there are plenty of fanatical Marxists among them who would like to rob us of everything we possess and kill us; but the big shots know that to do so would be to kill one of the few remaining geese in China that still lay golden eggs, and that if such geese are not allowed to retain comfortable nests to lay in they refuse to go on laying. That is why, to all appearances, we continue living here as in the past, and there is no outward sign that they hold a sword above our heads.’
‘I had naturally assumed that you had to make it worth their while to let you carry on; but I had no idea that they allowed you to remain here only on sufferance,’ Gregory said thoughtfully. ‘Since that is the case, though, it amazes me that they still permit you to keep armed retainers.’
‘They have to, for the protection of our caravans,’ came the quick reply. ‘Even the Soviets have not succeeded in putting down brigandage in their sparsely-populated Asiatic territories. But the men are no longer sworn to obey us. Some of the older ones are still loyal; but if a Communist official arrived with an order for our arrest the majority of them would not hesitate to carry it out. And that might happen any time. I do not think it will for a year or two yet, but sooner or later they will decide that they have infiltrated enough of their people into our business to run it. In China, as you must know, only very rarely is anyone made bankrupt. Even before the time of the Great Sage, it was a well-established tradition that no man should smash another’s rice bowl. But these people do it without compunction. One day they will descend on us without warning and fill our mouths with the salt of ruin.’
A-lu-te sighed. ‘How terrible to live always under such a threat. I understand now why you think the Princess would be a fool not to come with us. But why don’t you sell everything while you have the chance, and go to America?’
He looked at her, and then for a long moment at Gregory, before replying. ‘I am sure I can trust you both. That is what we hope to do. At least, as far as it is possible. For many months we have been gradually disposing of certain assets and smuggling the proceeds out of the country. But it is an extremely difficult thing to do on a large scale without being caught. For example, we dare not sell or remove more than a small portion of the priceless treasures in this house. The spies among the servants are too stupid to learn much about our affairs; but they would notice if many of the most valuable pieces disappeared, and would report it. That would be quite enough to give away our intentions.’
‘Then all those lovely things must pass out of the possession of your family,’ said A-lu-te sadly.
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘And once we are gone these Communist swine will loot even the graves of our ancestors for the jewels that were buried with them.’
After a moment he added on a lighter note, ‘Still, if we don’t leave things too long, we shall get out with our lives and enough money not to have to beg for our rice; so perhaps instead of going to the United States I will ask permission to come to live in your island.’
‘Having been out in the wide world for so long, I fear you would find little to hold your interest there,’ said A-lu-te demurely.
He gave her a meaning smile. ‘In certain circumstances I should be perfectly content to remain there for the rest of my life; but it would be an added advantage if one could sometimes travel again. As I am quite a good business man perhaps your Council would give me a job in their export department—on the understanding, of course, that if I were married I could take my wife on my travels with me.’
‘You will have to come there pretty soon then, or you will find the position filled.’ Gregory launched the double entendre for fun, but added smoothly, ‘I mean, we recently lost our Export Manager, but as soon as we inform the Council of his death they are certain to appoint someone in his place.’
In view of their conversation Gregory was not particularly surprised the following morning to see in the main courtyard the cloaked and fur-hatted Communist who had saved him from being stoned on the way up from Tung-kwan. He was talking to one of the cooks as Gregory passed through the great yard with A-lu-te and Tû-lai on their way to see a squash-racquets court that the latter had had built. Pointing out the Communist, Gregory told the story; but they were some way away from the squat figure and Tû-lai did not bother to give it a second glance, merely remarking:
‘Perhaps he belongs to their headquarters in Yen-an, or has been sent into the province to collect funds, most of which he will keep himself. There are now many of these small-fry who gain an easy living by terrorising the defenceless; but we should know it already if he meant any harm to us.’
Tû-lai had trained several young men to play squash with him; and Gregory was secretly amused to see that, although two of them showed great ability, all of them lost by handsome margins to their master in the games he had arranged to play as an entertainment for A-lu-te.
That evening, soon after sunset, Lin Wân informed them that Josephine had decided to accept the throne of the island; so they all went to pay her their respects and wish her a happy reign. She received their homage very prettily, but was called on to pay for it by an early lesson demonstrating the way in which a sovereign’s personal wishes have frequently to be sacrificed for the common good.
She asked for a week in which to say her good-byes and make her preparations for the journey, but Kâo again deferentially pointed out that even a day’s delay might jeopardise the safety of the yacht and its crew; so she had to agree to leaving after midday rice the following day. On other points, too, she had to give way to Kâo’s polite insistence. He told her that, as on their journey to the coast they must give the impression that they were ordinary middle-class people, the quantity of baggage she took should not exceed by much the modest amount A-lu-te had brought with her; and that as A-lu-te’s maid could serve them both, the limited cabin space in a sampan was the strongest of reasons for her giving up any idea that she should be accompanied by a personal maid of her own.
Madame Fan-ti invited her to join them for evening rice but she excused herself on the plea that as she must leave next day she had too much to do; so after Lin Wân had sent for sweet champagne, and they had drunk her health in it, they adjourned to the meal without her.
Afterwards, A-lu-te and Gregory again spent the rest of the evening in Tû-lai’s rooms. He appeared most upset because they were leaving so soon; so both of them did their best to cheer him up—A-lu-te by flirting with him openly, and Gregory by asking her to dance with him only twice—so that their host could make the most of the opportunity to jazz à l’America which, he said, he had never before been able to enjoy so far from western civilisation.
But they were by no means as near seeing the last of him as they had supposed, for the following morning he appeared dressed in travelling clothes, and announced his intention of escorting them as far as Tung-kwan. Apart from the pleasure his lively company was likely to give them, they were glad because it would make the lonely roads safer. With Kào’s hired men their little party would have included only seven males, whereas Tû-lai proposed to take with him six of the Lin caravan guards; and the addition meant a total train of some thirty riding and baggage animals, the sight of which at a distance was enough to scare off foot-pads or small bands of marauders.
It was not until they were just about to set out that Gregory noticed that P’ei was once more absent from the party. Kâo replied that, much to his annoyance, his servant had fallen sick the previous night, owing to something he had eaten, and was now in a state of complete exhaustion from a grievous colic. To delay their departure until he recovered was out of the question, but Kâo had left him ample money and Lin Wân had promised to furnish him with papers stating that he was one of his people; so it was to be hoped that he would catch them up somewhere between Tung-kwan and Su-chow.
Lin Wân and the Lady Fan-ti came out to the great gate to see them off, and, after the exchange of elaborate farewells, they started on their long journey to the coast. Their pace was restricted to the steady plodding of the camels; but even so, this smaller caravan was able to move faster than the big one with which they had come, and they covered fourteen miles before sundown brought them to a halt for the night.
The evening wind from the west had arisen as usual, and they had to keep their hoods well over their heads and faces to prevent the driving sand from getting into their hair and eyes; but they managed to find a fairly sheltered place to camp under the lee of a cliff. On the way up A-lu-te had shared her tent with Su-sen, and now expected to have to accommodate Josephine in it also; but the Lins had provided her with one for herself, while Tû-lai had one of his own, so they were not unduly crowded.
While their meal was being cooked they sat round the fire, and they remained there for some time after they had eaten. The difficulty of conversing with Josephine now became more apparent than ever, as, although she could listen to all that was said, and convey understanding by gestures, she could make no contribution to the talk except by scribbling on pieces of paper, and her writing had to be deciphered by the light of a torch.
After a time, as Gregory was the only member of the party who could interpret her phonetically-spelt French, a tendency arose for them to exchange ideas without reference to the others. Kâo had been smoking a pipe of opium, so fell into a doze, and Tû-lai needed no urging to develop a private conversation with A-lu-te.
That first evening proved a fair sample of what became almost a customary pairing off in the days that followed. Gregory would have much preferred to spend his time talking to A-lu-te, as he found Josephine’s mentality extremely limited, and there were even times when she appeared too stupid to write intelligent replies to quite straightforward questions. About her life in San Francisco she would say little, except that she had been unhappy there, and he got very tired of always talking about the island, which was the only subject that seemed to interest her. Yet she was so isolated from everyone else that he felt too sorry for her to ignore her signals and join the others, when at every halt she beckoned to him to come and sit by her side.
For all Kâo’s easy-going jollity, he continued to perform his self-imposed duty of chaperon very conscientiously, so there could be no question of either of the ladies wandering away out of the glow of the nightly camp fires with Gregory or Tû-lai; but on the fourth evening while camp was being pitched, A-lu-te and Gregory chanced to be standing a little apart, out of ear-shot of the others, and she took the occasion to say to him a little petulantly:
‘You must find the Princess very charming to devote so much of your time to her.’
‘On the contrary,’ he replied. ‘I find her a colossal bore. Her mother may have been beautiful, but her brain must have been about the size of a pea, judging from the little she taught her daughter. The girl is a positive ignoramus. Of course it is quite understandable that her knowledge of the world should be limited, but she must have had more than the usual amount of time for reading, and apart from light French novels, she doesn’t seem to have ever looked inside a book. Still, I am the only person in the party who can lighten the tedium of the journey for her, so you mustn’t take it badly if I seem to be neglecting you. And, after all, you seem to be filling in your time very pleasantly with Tû-lai.’
‘Yes, I find him a most agreeable companion,’ she admitted calmly. ‘As things have turned out it was very fortunate for me that he came with us.’
As Gregory felt affection, rather than love, for her, the way in which she was flirting with Tû-lai had not caused him to become jealous; but she had certainly given him grounds enough, and it occurred to him that she might feel hurt if he failed to show it; so he said with sudden asperity:
‘I’ve a damned good mind to take that young man behind the rocks and punch his head. I will, too, if you don’t stop encouraging him every time he makes eyes at you.’
Evidently delighted by his reaction, A-lu-te laughed, but said demurely, ‘That would be both unkind and unfair. You cannot blame him for trying to poach on your preserves since he does not know that I am engaged to you.’
Gregory gave an angry snort. ‘That’s the infuriating part of this whole situation. If only we could tell everybody that you are my fiancée, I’d have a decent excuse for neglecting Josephine to spend more time with you, and he would have to keep to himself the pretty speeches he makes you.’
She shrugged. ‘To disclose our secret before we get back to the island might lead to Kâo’s refusing to allow you to travel further with us; and that would be terrible. So it seems we must put up with things as they are. At all events, even if Josephine’s mind is as dumb as her mouth she is a most luscious creature, and I’m sure you must derive a lot of consolation from constantly looking at her.’
‘Not as much as you seem to from being looked at by Tû-lai.’
‘I think you very ungenerous,’ she replied with a little sigh of self-pity. ‘It is natural that a woman should enjoy admiration, and especially so when it comes from such an attractive young man. It makes me quite sad to think that he will be leaving us so soon.’
‘I had forgotten that,’ Gregory lied, feeling that having shown his concern he might now make a generous gesture. ‘If we continue at the rate we have been going we shall reach Tung-kwan in another three days. He really is a very nice fellow, and has been most kind to us; so I will try not to mind your amusing yourself with him for the little time remaining to you.’
As it turned out, Tû-lai had to leave them earlier than they expected and in most unhappy circumstances. They were moving well, and covering about twenty-five miles a day as against twenty on their outward journey; so by noon on the sixth day, they were emerging from the barren uplands into a sparsely-cultivated area, and had only about thirty more miles to go. It was while they were packing up after their midday halt that a fast pony rider, trailing a spare mount on a long lead, came galloping up to them. Throwing himself off his sweating pony he flung himself at Tû-lai’s feet and lay there wailing. When they raised him up he gasped out that his Lord, the mighty Lin Wân, was dead.
The news threw the camp into consternation, and everyone crowded round the exhausted messenger pressing him for particulars; but he could tell them little. He knew only that on the third morning after their departure his master had been found dead in a room where he often worked late at night, and it was said that he had died of a stroke. He had been dispatched post-haste to overtake the young Lord, so that he might return as swiftly as possible to perform the ceremonies.
Tû-lai burst into tears. Kâo and the three women wept with him, while the camel-men, porters and guards joined in the lamentations with a prodigious wailing. But the bereaved young man soon pulled himself together sufficiently to take a tearful farewell of them, and set off home. With him he took spare ponies, but only one of the guards, leaving the others under the orders of a man named Chou to continue to the caravan’s destination, protecting by their presence, the lady he was obviously so loath to leave.
Still much subdued by the tragedy that had overtaken their friend, they reached Tung-kwan late the following afternoon. Kâo paid off the men he had hired for the journey, and gave a handsome present to Chou for distribution among the guards who meant to camp in the big courtyard of the inn for the night, then set off back to Yen-an at dawn the following morning.
At the inn they again succeeded in getting rooms on the garden side of the building, and shortly after their baggage had been taken up they were told, as before, that a Communist official demanded to see them. This time they went downstairs without any feeling of anxiety. Lin Wân’s commercial activities being recognised by the government, his accredited agents were allowed to travel freely in any part of China, and he had furnished them with authentic papers, corresponding where it had seemed advisable with the false ones they had held before.
The young man slowly thumbed these over, peered at them through his glasses, and listened to further flattering remarks from Kâo on the smartness of his appearance. Then he said he was satisfied, received another tip, stamped the papers and took his departure.
Kâo decided that it was now too late to go out and try to find a reliable sampan captain to take them down the river; so they had their evening meal early, and after it the four of them played mahjong until bed time. As they were leaving the table to go upstairs, and Gregory stood aside to let Josephine pass, she swiftly palmed a piece of paper into his hand. When he got to his room he opened and read it. On it in her colloquial French she had written, ‘I must see you alone. Please come to my room when all are asleep.’
Unhappily he stared at it, wondering what her summons to a secret rendezvous in her bedroom portended. She was, as A-lu-te had not failed to remark, a luscious creature, and she had an appearance of ripe womanhood beyond her twenty years. On the journey south she had taken no pains to conceal the fact that she liked him, and experience had taught him that the less women had in their heads the more thought they gave to the sensual desires of their bodies. The fact of being dumb could make no difference whatever to her being subject to such natural urges, and it might well be that having been rigorously secluded from men for so long she had become obsessed with the idea of taking a lover at the first opportunity. If that was the idea, he had no desire at all to play such a role, and to have to tell her so could only result in an awkward and humiliating scene.
On the other hand, since Tû-lai had left them she had suddenly become depressed and nervy. Before making his formal farewell to her, the young Chinaman had taken her aside and said something to her in a low voice. Gregory had thought nothing of it at the time, but now the recollection of them regarding one another with intense seriousness for a moment came back to him, and he wondered if what ever had passed between them was the cause of the drop in her spirits for the past day and a half. Women’s quarters in the east were, he knew, far from impregnable; so it was possible that in secret Tû-lai had been her lover, and she had been upset by his sudden departure. But that did not seem plausible for several reasons. From the beginning he had shown little interest in her future. On the journey she had hardly given him a glance. And anyhow she had known that she would see the last of him in another two days. Yet there could be no doubt that for the past thirty-six hours her past cheerfulness had deserted her.
After much thought, Gregory decided to risk the possibility of having to reject unwelcome advances from her on the chance that she was a prey to some real worry about which she wished to consult him privately.
The lives of most people in Tung-kwan were still governed by the rising and setting of the sun; so their midnight really was the middle of the night, and even late revellers sought their beds well before that hour. By then the inn was completely silent, so Gregory had no reason to fear that anyone was still about. Opening his door he moved quietly out on to the balcony. There was no moon, but enough starlight for him to see that the whole length of it was empty. Next to his own room, on the right, lay Kâo’s, beyond it was Josephine’s, and beyond that on the corner of the house the one occupied by A-lu-te.
On such midnight forays Gregory never tensed his body and went on tiptoe, but allowed himself to go slack, and as he advanced each foot in turn just let it descend gently by its own weight. Without making a sound he passed Kâo’s room and reached Josephine’s door. The small squares in the lattice of the windows were covered with an opaque material, and through it came a faint light. Regarding the terms of her invitation as a permission to enter without knocking, he took the handle of the door in a firm grasp and turned it. At a slight pressure the door opened. Josephine was opposite it, sitting up in bed with a solitary thick yellow candle burning in a saucer on the floor beside her.
As Gregory stepped into the room she jumped out of bed. He had hardly closed the door behind him before she flung herself on her knees, clutched him round the legs and gasped:
‘Monsieur! Help me, I beg! Only you can save me!’
For a second he stared down into her distraught face. Then it flashed upon him that she had spoken. She was not dumb! Therefore she was not the Princess.