“Indeed!” decisively.
Yung Long raised himself on his elbows. His oblique eyes flashed a scrutinizing look and the other winked a slow wink and remarked casually that a wise and old man must first peer into the nature of things, then widen his knowledge, then harden his will, then control the impulses of his heart, then entirely correct himself—then establish good order in his family.
“Truly spoken,” agreed Yung Long. “Truly spoken, O wise and older brother! A family! A family needs the strength of a man and the soft obedience of a woman.”
“Mine is dead,” sighed Nag Hong Fah. “My household is upset. My children cry.”
Yung Long slipped a little fan from his wide silken sleeves and opened it slowly.
“I have a sister,” he said gently, “Yung Quai, a childless woman who once was your wife, O wise and older brother.”
“A most honorable woman!” Nag Hong Fah shut his eyes and went on: “I wrote to her five days ago, sending her money for her railway fare to New York.”
“Ah!” softly breathed the grocer; and there followed another silence.
Yung Long’s young cousin was kneading, against the pipe, the dark opium cubes which the flame gradually changed into gold and amber.
“Please smoke,” advised the grocer.