She blinked her glorious eyes very much as if they were full of tears at the recollection, but I did not see any fall, and she pursued her supper without any interruption of appetite.
I sat back in my chair, watching her and musing. Poor old Hop Lee! I wondered what his last moments had been like, and whether those dainty fingers had really been employed smoothing his brow, or counting his effects, at the last?
"And then what came after?" I asked. "How did it come that you were to be sold, as you said?"
"We were very poor when he died; so poor, and we owed a lot, and his brother came up from Juneau and took over the tea-shop and everything. Then he said he had offer from big Chinaman who would buy me, and he said my husband owe him lot of money, he sell me, get it back, and he sent me down to Nanine in 'Frisco to give to big Chinaman; but I told Nanine you would give more, so Nanine kept me for you."
"But how will your husband's brother get the money for you in that case?" I said.
"What a lot of questions you do ask, Treevor!" she returned sulkily. "I don't know how he will get the money. He will make Nanine give him some, I suppose. Let us forget it all, I don't want to think of that any more."
I laughed.
"Very well. If you have finished your supper, come over here and sit on my knee and we will forget it all, as you say."
She rose willingly and came over to me, a lovely, shimmering, Oriental vision, dainty and perfect.
"I must paint you, Suzee, some day just as you appear now and call you
The Beauty of China, or something like that. You seem the joy of the
East incarnate."