“Granted,” her husband agreed good-naturedly, “but you know the classic adage, ‘Things are not always what they seem’—not even Chinese things. ‘Skim milk’—you know the poem. This chap can do as he’s told.”
“But who’s to tell him?”
“You and I.”
Ruby giggled—she had not often done that of late. “You’re crazy, Lo,” she asserted. “I couldn’t tell him how to make one, and I’m sure you can’t.”
“Don’t be too sure,” King-lo advised her. “Ah, here come the stuffs for you to choose.”
Several half-grown Chinese boys had padded in as he spoke, each carrying a paper-wrapped roll of material—sober-eyed lads with far shaven foreheads and silk-tasseled queues hanging almost to the hems of their sober robes, the crest-badge of the Sêns on each blue-clad back.
“Master-artist Worth’s apprentices,” Sên pronounced them.
“Tell them to apprentice off then,” his wife commanded. “They look more like dummies than apprentices,” she added. “Tell them to go, Lo. I don’t want a habit—here—what should I do with it? We couldn’t even ride in Hongkong. Send them away.”
“Just a minute,” Sên King-lo begged. “The grandmother will be disappointed. She has planned it to give you pleasure. Two of the grooms are trying out a horse for you now, a splendid, gentle creature that my cousin Wang’s son often rides. The venerable one has commandeered it for you. It has never had a woman on its back, or a side-saddle, but it has a side-saddle now: the saddlers were up all last night, making it by candle-light. Sên Wo P’ing has seen Englishwomen ride in Shanghai on the Bubbling Well road, and he was with them all night—it was the grandmother’s command—directing them as they worked by candle and torch and lantern light. And they’ll be doing it again tonight. Ka’-ka’ is careering about now in the storm with a side-saddle on her back, but it is only a half-finished one. One groom is clutching and dancing at her bit, hanging there for grim life, the other is side-saddled on her back and looks like to break his neck—but he won’t do it. They all three are having the time of their lives, as we used to say in Washington. But tomorrow or the next day Ka’-ka’ ’ll be as tame as any rabbit. The old heart is set on it, and so is mine. Won’t you have her kindness, wifeling?”
Ruby Sên rose slowly, the silken jumper falling to the floor.