He hunted round quickly with his eyes. Just then to his amazement in the little courtyard, on the other side of the wall, he saw the girl appear from behind a huge earthenware pot containing water-lilies. She had been crouching there all this while. And seeing that he had seen her, she signed to him vigorously to keep silence.
"Yeh-yeh," she called from behind the wall to the steward who could not see her. Wang the Ninth, turning his head first in one direction and then in another, noted that the old man's manner instantly changed.
"Yes, yes," he said hurriedly, glancing over his shoulder to see that nobody was overhearing them. "What can I do?"
"Listen," called the girl over the wall to him. "Do not trouble about this boy. It is a small affair. He is doing no wrong. He would only show me the bird which I told him to do some days ago."
"Still if the master saw him," returned the steward doubtfully.
"It is my wish," responded the girl.
There was a moment's dead silence. Then, with something muttered under his breath, the old man shuffled away.
Wang the Ninth stood with his mouth wide open from amazement. He watched the old man retreat out of sight as if the most surprising thing in the world had taken place; and then, when he was sure that it was really true, words poured from his mouth.
"He listens to you!" he exclaimed blankly. "Not a word does he dare to say in reply. He just listens. Well, well," he ended, waggishly shaking his head. "Here is the strangest thing that ever happened—a man who obeys a woman."
Now admiration crept into his looks. He looked down at the girl in such a frankly approving way that she was a little nonplussed. The mastery she had displayed was something entirely novel to him, for the idea that a man might have to take orders from a woman had never occurred to him before. In his world the women slaved and worked and rarely rebelled save over money-matters or owing to quarrels among themselves. They were obedient. They only commanded their children—never grown men.