“I had an excellent lunch,” her husband asserted, “but not at the Club. I lunched and wined at the hotel with a lady.”
“And she gave you the flower in your coat!”
“She did.”
Mrs. Sên giggled. “You took Mrs. Yen out to lunch on the sly! Did you have a private room?”
“I did not,” Lo said sadly, “take Mrs. Yen out to lunch. It would not have been permitted.”
Ivy wanted a second cup of tea, but she would not take it for fear that Sên would miss the sugar-basin. She always took three lumps, and she knew that he always watched her hands. So she munched a sandwich instead and quenched her thirst with a mango.
“I lunched with a lady, though.”
His wife knew that he wanted her to say: “Who was she?” and because she knew it, she said nothing.
And because she would not ask, he would not tell her—yet. They often played that game, and Sên usually won. If an English woman could wait, so could a Chinese man.
“Is the home mail in, Lo?”