He stammered with surprise at the directness of this question.
"Yes," at last he nerved himself to admit.
"How long have you known it?"
"I—I have known it—I don't know when I knew it."
"And you let them do all these things when you knew my father was dead?"
The boy opposed a sullen reserve. He felt it was wrong that he should submit to scolding on the first night of his wedding, but he was glad for any excuse to talk. He was afraid of this outspoken foreigner. Nancy divined his thoughts.
"Did you wish to be married?" she asked. "Your parents made you, I suppose. You had to be here, didn't you? I didn't. I married to please my father."
There was pride in her voice, pride ill assorted with the humiliation she had suffered, with the sorrow her heart seemed not large enough to contain.
"I didn't please him. I killed him. I don't belong to you," she cried, with a sudden gust of bitterness that showed her shame had not been forgotten. "I don't belong to you. I married to make my father happy, and he isn't happy. You are only a schoolboy; you don't understand these things. I don't see you; I see my father. I don't even think of you; I think of him. They knew he was dead and yet they went on with this marriage. They deceived me and tricked me into coming here when I ought to be at home and weeping. They put up red candles and sent the red chair for me when they knew he was dead. They pulled you away from your books, did they, all because they were afraid they would lose the money my father promised? And so they forced you to marry a foreigner—how many taels was it?"
Ming-te stood like the schoolboy Nancy declared him to be. His attitude suggested dread of the ferule poised above his head.