Wu ignored her words good-naturedly, and began pouring out the tea. “I have sugar and cream, you see, quite in the Western way.”
“No—no, I couldn’t,” she reiterated impatiently, but coming back to the table and watching the cups as he filled them. “Please tell me of my son and let me go.”
For answer, the mandarin held out to her a cup of tea. “Pray take this cup of tea, Mrs. Gregory,” he said with grave politeness. “Oh! I understand,” he added with a slight, chill smile, when she paid no attention to the cup he proffered her. He put it down. “You would prefer to see me drink first.” With an inclination of his head to her, he lifted his own cup and drained it at a draught. “So! perhaps that will reassure you.” He put his cup down and refilled it. “Pray take the tea,” he urged hospitably: “it will not only be refreshing—and your lips look dry and parched—but it will also be a politeness to do so.”
She stood looking at him dully, and then sank slowly down on to a stool.
“Sugar—and—cream,” the mandarin said brightly. There was more of Mayfair and of Oxford in tone and in manner than there was of Cathay. And the anachronism was gruesome rather than droll, as he stood in his mandarin’s robes fanning himself with his left hand (the sons of Han are more nearly ambidextrous than they of any other race) and with his right hand plying the silver sugar-tongs with slow dexterity. “So!” he held out the perfected cup. “It is the choicest growth of the Empire, Mrs. Gregory, sun-dried with the flowers of jasmine.”
She took the cup, and he took up his. Just as she was forcing herself to drink—his own cup almost to his lip—he said with the same suave manner, “Have you no curiosity, Mrs. Gregory, to learn the name”—a poisonous change came in his voice—“of my daughter’s seducer?”
The Englishwoman put down her cup quickly, with a hand so unnerved and trembling that it scarcely served to guide its small burden. She tried to drop her eyes, but she couldn’t—he held them with his relentlessly. “I don’t understand you,” she faltered. “Your—your manner is so strange.”
Wu said nothing, but he smiled into her gaze coldly, and she rose with a shudder. Wu smiled at her still, and with a sudden wild cry she darted to the sliding doors and beat on them hysterically. But she realized at once that they were locked and were strong. And she turned around, at bay but hopeless, leaning her back against the door, and faced Wu miserably, her smarting hands hanging limp at her sides.
Wu Li Chang unfolded his fan and began to churn the air towards his face with it.
No European ever has understood what his fan means to a Chinese. Probably no European ever will be able to understand that. With their fans the Chinese hide emotion, express emotion, and, when it reaches the danger point, give it vent. Often a Chinese man’s frail, tiny fan is his safety valve. China’s greatest warriors have carried their fans into battle. Criminals fan themselves on the execution ground. Frightened Chinese girls, in the torment of first child-birth, fan themselves. Wu was fanning himself in triumph. And he spoke to her quickly, his voice ringing with triumph. “There are several ways into this room, Mrs. Gregory, but only one way out.” The fan shut with an ominous click—a rattle of ivory, a hiss and a rustle of silk. “It lies by that door”—he pointed it with his fan—“which leads to my own inner chamber.”