Sir Charles Snow was not. “Don’t expect us in the drawing-room quite as soon as is best politeness,” he told his wife. “I particularly want to pick Mr. Sên King-lo’s brains, and a secret or two, if it can be done.”
Sên King-lo’s eyes sparkled good-humoredly. “I shall try to be picked very swiftly,” he said to the girl as she followed Lady Snow through the door he held. “To Hecuba, Sir Charles,” he bade his host as they reseated themselves. “My brains are at your service, and my secrets too, if I’ve any that are mine only—but I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“I lived in China a number of years,” Snow said, pouring the port, “as you probably did not know.”
Sên laughed. “But, of course, I did. We have a list—a fairly accurate list, I fancy—at the ‘shop’ of every official, and of every one else worth watching, in Washington now, who has been in our country, or has interests there.”
“To be sure! I might have known that. But, I don’t suppose you know anything about what I did in China—it wasn’t much, and you were the merest child then, still smelling of your mother’s milk.”
The Chinese face quickened at the other’s use of a Chinese saying. Then it grew graver, and Sên said a little sadly:
“We have to grow old rapidly now, we Chinese who love our country, and wish to serve her. I know what year you landed in China, what boat you took there, how long you stayed, much of what you did, where you lived and went most of the time, who many of your Chinese friends were. And that was one reason—only one—why I was so particularly pleased when I received Lady Snow’s note, kindly saying that I might dine with her and make your acquaintance—for I don’t suppose we count as acquaintance the few k’o-tow nods we’ve exchanged at your ‘shop’ and mine.”
“No—precisely,” Snow agreed. “Well—as you know then, I must try not to feel too flattered by what is purely a bit of detail work of a painstaking patriotism, you know that I have lived in China all told quite a lump of moons——”
“A year and seven weeks longer than I have myself—all told.”
“By Jove! You have been exiled as much as that?”