"You can depend upon me for that," answered the t'ai-t'ai, taken aback, even after Nancy's long silence, by this sudden pleasant sequel to a proposal offered wholly at random. She had never dreamed that Nancy would comply. Truly, these foreigners were unsearchable. Nancy's one bitter satisfaction from the scene was in noting the t'ai-t'ai's bewilderment, the t'ai-t'ai's sense of being baffled, even in her moment of triumph, by the simplicity of the girl who had promised on point-blank request what she herself had been preparing months of subtle intrigue to effect.
"You must prepare the way," Nancy added, "if you want me to speak to my father. I cannot go to him outright and say I wish to be married. I am not so shameless as that."
"It isn't shameless for foreigners to discuss these things," the t'ai-t'ai reassured her. "Nothing is shameless for foreigners."
"I am not a foreigner," Nancy answered sharply.
The t'ai-t'ai was equal to the task. Although she had not expected Nancy's compliance, for weeks she had been drumming into Herrick's ears, through Kuei-lien's insinuating lips, the thought that Nancy ought to be wedded. The father, at first, had listened humorously as though he read the jest of Kuei-lien's envy. But insistence had forced the notion into his brain. He began to argue it with himself and then with his concubine.
"Why should I make my daughter unhappy for your amusement?" he protested.
And now Kuei-lien was able to say, "It is her own wish."
"It is, is it?" scoffed the father. "Very well, we shall see."
He summoned his daughter.
"Nancy," he said, "you know perhaps that when I arranged your betrothal I did this on condition that you should not be married till you were twenty. I wanted you to enjoy the last few years of your childhood in the freedom your mother had. And I did not choose to deprive myself too soon of your companionship. I haven't had so much of your companionship as I looked for, but—well, we won't go into that. My illness has upset matters. But now Kuei-lien astonishes me by saying you don't want this freedom, that you are tired of your father's home and wish to be married. Never mind the delicacy or indelicacy of the question, but just tell me frankly, is this true?"