She paused for a minute. Nancy groped for the meaning hid behind this roundabout speech.
"Why were you weeping?" suddenly asked the old t'ai-t'ai, catching her quite off her guard. Nancy did not dare to reply because she knew too well why she had been weeping. The distant music, the fear of being left alone in this dreary household after the old t'ai-t'ai had died, revived the longing for Ronald's protection; just when the thought filled her heart the abrupt question trapped the girl. She blushed, as though her shrewd old protector had detected the wish itself.
"You too, my child, hide things from me," playfully scolded the lao t'ai-t'ai. Then she surprised the girl by another quick turn. "Did your father ever ask for you a husband of your own race? Ming-te was an afterthought, you know and I know. Come, you needn't be embarrassed; a person of my years can discuss these things. We make our own laws when we have lived long enough."
"How did you know what my father did?" exclaimed Nancy.
"You yourself have just told me," laughed the woman. She smoothed Nancy's hair with the gentle masterful hands which always radiated such warm feelings of safety, quelling doubt and uneasiness till the girl shut her eyes as if she were sinking asleep in a pleasant bed. "But I didn't need you to tell me," she continued, "for I knew your father's nature and I know yours. Your father was a better Chinese than most of us; he was a scholar; he was a gentleman; the old customs were at his finger tips. But he couldn't unmake himself and he couldn't unmake his daughter, and when you grew old enough to be married his heart must have lost much peace. He never wanted you to marry Ming-te. He had found and lost another husband for you."
"How did you know these things?" cried Nancy again.
"Didn't he?"
"Yes," confessed the girl.
"Aha, my daughter, now I do truly know why you were weeping. You obeyed your father when he didn't want you to obey him. I have heard your story and much more than you thought you were telling me with your lips. We old people can't sit on the k'ang all day watching the strange things men do without seeing many things they think they have hidden. But I have marveled at you. No daughter ever honored her father as you have done. Not a word of complaint, not an unmannerly sentence have you spoken, not a breath against Ming-te or these women who persecuted you. This would be a splendid family, a glorious family indeed, if it were fit for a daughter like you. But it isn't. You don't belong here. You and I should have been young together. Those were days when men understood. What does a republic make us? Sheep and donkeys! No, you don't belong here; and when I die I will send you where you do belong. Tell me about the husband your father first chose for you."
"I have told you," said Nancy, carried out of her embarrassment.