“Thoroughbred,” Snow replied in a word.
“Superbly. But she won’t like being left.”
“You won’t take her?”
“Of course not. The time isn’t quite ripe, I think——”
Sir Charles Snow was sure that it was not even ripening and never would be, but he smoked on in silence.
“But,” King-lo added hurriedly, “I may be wrong there. But we couldn’t possibly take the young Lord Ruben home with us yet. Two messages came by the same post—this morning’s early one. It isn’t only that the bank needs me over there for a bit; but my grandmother tells me to come to her——”
“The devil she does,” thought Sir Charles Snow. He knew those Chinese grandmothers—he knew what their suzerainty was and the ruthless way they asserted and enforced it. China might be a republic, but twenty republics couldn’t clip the wings of one old hobble-gaited grand-dame who lived, shrill and impregnable, far off from the tourist-beaten paths.
“I might do the work at the banks by proxy, important as it is. But Sên Ya Tin must be obeyed.”
Snow nodded. He knew that.
“And I couldn’t think of taking the baby that journey. You know where we live. I don’t see my son on that trip! The Yangtze in flood as like as not, local troubles in at least two of the provinces between Hongkong and home, shotguns in full action, and not a cow for miles. No, Sên junior cannot accompany Sên. I must leave them here.”