“My mother,” he said huskily. For an instant his eyes were enraged.
“No,” the Englishman replied quietly, going back to his chair, leaving the miniature on the smoking-table between them. “Your mother’s sister. Her milk-name was ‘Lotus.’ ”
“The nun!”
“She was not a nun when I knew her,” Charles Snow said.
“I have seen your mother, too, Sên King-lo,” he added presently, “both as a girl in her father’s home and as a wife in her husband’s.”
“I never saw her!” Sên Ruby’s son said sadly.
“They were very alike—the sisters.”
“Very,” Sên agreed. “I have a miniature of my mother, here in my rooms, that might almost be this. My father gave it to me, from his robe, as he died.”
“They were painted by the same brush,” Snow told him. “I have seen your miniature, Sên King-lo. Their father trusted me, and so did yours.”
Sên gave his English friend a filial look.