The mandarin laughed softly and shook his head at her indulgently.
“You scoundrel!” she told him, infuriated.
“Oh! I forgive your trying to deceive me, Mrs. Gregory,” Wu said calmly; “it is only natural. Oh! that window,” he added, in answer to an involuntary look toward it. “Yes, it leads out on to the courtyard where your devoted servant is waiting; but the architect has placed it so very high, and has made it so very small. Now”—he made her a little bow—“I will leave you, but not for long.” And he passed through the unlocked door and closed it behind him very gently.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Gong
DISTRACTED, not knowing what she did, or why, like some wild thing trapped and helpless, Florence Gregory looked about the room, searching it with eyes almost too fright-blinded for sight. Again she tried the doors—all but one. She made a desperate, useless effort to push the window apart. “Basil!” she cried, “Basil!” Then she checked herself. “No! I mustn’t do that! O God!” she moaned, turning to driven humanity’s last great resort, “help me!”
She groped her way unsteadily across the room, and climbed with trembling legs upon the bench and reached her hands up toward the little window.
“No,” she sobbed in a whisper, “I can’t,” for she could not reach to half the opening’s height. She looked about her stealthily, rose on her very tiptoes, and called towards the window, “Ah Wong! Ah Wong! can you hear me? Go quickly, for the love of Heaven! Fetch them! Help me, Ah Wong! Help me! I am alone, Ah Wong—but he will be back—very soon. Quick, amah, quick! Ah Wong, are you there?”
And then she waited.
Oh! that waiting.