CHAPTER X
PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT
If Ku Nai-nai had been more wide-awake, she could hardly have failed to notice how quickly the housework and cooking were done next day; but as she was not given to interesting herself in other people's motives (although she was very suspicious when there was the slightest cause for it, and sometimes when there was none at all), she did not observe that Little Yi was eager to prepare her pipe and pot of tea, while An Ching and Nelly wiped out the bowls and put them in the cook-house. There is not much to do in a Chinese family—no scrubbing or polishing; the cooking, too, is quite simple in the ordinary home. The stone floors are swept and the furniture wiped over. The Chinese don't mind dust, but they like to have things in their places and the rooms orderly. Chinese girls never come in from a walk and throw their hats and gloves on a chair, because, to begin with, they don't wear hats and gloves, and they very seldom go for walks.
An Ching pretended to be cross because Nelly had spilled some rice, and told the children to go off and leave her to finish alone. They went directly to their favourite side court, and at once got the red paper out of the heap of stones and threw a piece with a pebble inside over the wall. Nelly finding that she could not throw any better than before, Little Yi tried, and succeeded very well—so well, indeed, that Chang was there with his ladder in almost no time after they had left the house. He gave the children the usual Chinese greeting of, 'Fine day. Are you well?'
Nelly replied: 'Quite well. It is rather hot. This is Little Yi.'
Chang hoped Little Yi was well, and when she had replied that she was, and hoped he was too, he asked for 'the young Ku Nai-nai,' meaning An Ching.
Nelly explained (not without the assistance of Little Yi, who liked to put in her word) that An Ching did not consider it proper to talk to Chang without his wife.
Chang repeated this to his wife, who was at the foot of the ladder.