“Why?” she asked feebly, at bay now, and putting up such poor fight as she could for time, in the desperate hope that some outside help might come—from Ah Wong or from somewhere. “Why, what can one value more than life?”
“Let us rather say,” the Chinese insinuated, bending until his breath fanned her cheek, “what can a woman value more than her own life—or the life of her son?” He paused, not for a reply—he expected none—but to watch the effect upon her of his poisoned words; to watch and gloat. She, poor creature, no longer made any pretense. Her strength was gone: worn away by the persistent drip, drip of his long, slow cruelty. She looked about the room wildly, saw the face leering close to hers, and shrank away shuddering. “When I have your attention, Mrs. Gregory,” Wu said determinedly, but falling back a pace or two.
The entrapped woman summoned up all her courage. “You shall have it, Mr. Wu,” she said steadily, rising, “from the moment you tell me what I came to hear.”
“If you will be seated again,” the mandarin said suavely, “I will proceed to do so. But you must allow me to choose my own route.”
Florence Gregory looked at her tormentor squarely, then beseechingly. She hesitated. And then she sank back listlessly on to the seat.
“And so,” the man continued, “I will commence with—the sword.”
Mrs. Gregory closed her aching eyes and caught her cold hands together—and waited.
The mandarin moved, and spoke more and more deliberately. Slowness could not be slower than his was now. He took down the sword—he remembered how he had touched it last—his face was ice, his voice as cold. “As I told you,” he began, standing in front of her, the sword resting on its point, held between them, “it belonged to an ancestor of mine who lived many generations ago, Wu Li Chang, whose name I bear. Perhaps you would like to look at it more closely.” There was a note of command in his voice, and the woman, obeying, lifted her head a little and fixed her agonized eyes on the weapon he held, edge towards her. “I will show it to you, and then restore it to its place. You see, the blade is no longer keen——” But the point was. She saw neither. “I keep it merely for its history.” He laid it on the table, laid it between the Englishwoman and himself, as he might have laid a covenant or some vital document of evidence, a terrible accusation, a great deed of gift.
The torture of the merciless leisurely recital was telling on the woman visibly. She had held a pistol stoically enough this morning. But when, at a weary movement of her own, the lace in her sleeve caught in the old sword’s hilt, she shuddered and shrank back. She made no pretense of listening. She was “done,” for then at least; and of her diplomatic courteousness not a shred was left. But yet she heard each word.
Wu sat down again, and the slow, cold voice went on evenly. “My ancestor had only one child, a very beautiful daughter. He worshiped her with more devotion than is common in China—for you know we do not often (unless of pure Manchu blood) esteem daughters so highly as sons. But he was an admirable man—a good neighbor, unselfish, upright, charitable (and—is it not strange?—for all this was before the missionaries came to China), a faithful husband—he was a very devoted father. She was, in your Western phrase, the apple of his eye. Well, one day when the time came for her marriage to a mandarin to whom she was betrothed, her father discovered that she—that her marriage was no longer possible.” Basil Gregory’s mother was listening now, not listlessly. The ears of a mother’s soul are terribly acute. “He dragged from her her lover’s name, and then, without a word of reproach or of warning, he slew the being that he loved—with that sword.”