And the pity of it is its absolute unnecessariness: just a cup of cold water now and then, just a little human kindliness now and then, and the liking and sympathy of Oriental womanhood were ours. Some one has written of “the heart that must beat somewhere beneath the impenetrable Oriental mask.” The mask is not impenetrable. An honest, friendly smile will pierce it. The Oriental is nine-tenths heart. A typical Asiatic can be won by moderate kindness to great loyalty and devotion. Page after page of the history of the Indian mutiny proves it.
And of the Chinese people this is even truer.
Florence Gregory was a kindly, likeable woman, and during her year in Hong Kong she had not thought it necessary to make herself detestable to the Chinese with whom she came in contact.
On her part this was neither tact nor studied policy. They interested her and she liked them, and in return they liked her. She gave them courtesy and decent treatment, and sometimes a sunny word or two, and in return they gave her of their best and served her loyally. Ah Wong, her amah, adored her.
There was nothing that Ah Wong would not have done for her English mistress. And the story of it is this: Mrs. Gregory had never saved Ah Wong’s life or rescued her son from slavery. She had just been quietly and decently kind to her in the little daily ways. Oh! those little ways, the little things—too small to chronicle, almost too small to sense sometimes—but to women they are everything! The big things scarcely count to women; but the little things—they count.
When Basil Gregory did not keep his promise to dine at their hotel his mother was disappointed, but not inordinately surprised, and only moderately hurt. It had happened before.
They waited dinner half an hour. Robert Gregory would not allow a longer waiting. And even the mother dined with an unruffled appetite. Even when midnight came without him it occurred to no one to be in the least alarmed—to no one but Ah Wong.
Ah Wong had seen the impalpable intrinsic stalking in the garden at Kowloon. And what she saw alarmed her then. Basil’s continued absence alarmed her more and more. She was alarmed for her mistress’s peace of mind. Basil himself she neither liked nor disliked. She thought Robert Gregory a funny old chap. The son did not interest her.
When Basil did not appear at the office the next day his father was angry. When three days passed, and no word came of the truant, they were alarmed—all of them. And in a week the island rang with hue and cry for him.
Mrs. Gregory was distraught.