"No," said Nancy, her loyalty shocked by the question.
"Then they were not as good friends as I had hoped they might be," said the father bitterly. "Ah, never mind me," he continued, ashamed of the puzzled dismay he had brought to Nancy's eyes. "I am saying stupid things. I can't help it when I don't feel well. Your marriage will be quite all right, my child. Of course you don't want to be married. What maiden does? But it's nothing to worry about. It's not like going among foreigners and having to learn new ways. The Ferrises have seen you only as a foreigner, just as you are now, and a pretty English girl you do make, Nancy; even I have to admit that."
Suddenly the picture of his daughter in Western clothes overpowered him; the mere mention of her appearance opened the floodgates of his despair, released a torrent of memories which rose higher and higher in his brain till they threatened to drown out his life with their unprisonable anguish. Herrick stood up like a man in great wrath; the veins of his forehead were swollen, his eyes ablaze with the violence of this unexpected temper.
"Go away, Nancy," he ordered, "go and change those wretched things! You have bewitched me with this masquerade. How can I decide anything, give my right mind to anything, when you sit mocking Me with the very clothes you wear?"
By a gesture he seemed to sweep the frightened girl out of his sight.
Only slowly, in the quiet of his room, did his muscles relax and his heart cease pounding. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. His hand was shaking.
"Why must I do these things?" he sighed. "It was not her fault."
His harshness had filled the house with silence. He rang his bell and to his surprise Kuei-lien appeared.
"Is there anyone alive in this cursed place?" he asked. "Can't you sing or shout or do something to make a noise? Where have Edward and Li-an gone? Have they lost their tongues?"
"You have frightened them all," said Kuei-lien, with an amused smile. "You shouldn't speak so crossly to your daughter. She is weeping. Her heart is not at peace."