"That may be too late, my child."
"But I cannot go till you are dead—and oh, I don't want you to die."
"That may be too late."
"I cannot promise more than that," vowed Nancy, with a firmness that would not be denied.
The t'ai-t'ai stooped and lifted her up.
"No, of course you can't," she agreed, laughing gayly. "I know you can't. You can't help being yourself. But at least I have your promise that you will go after I am dead; you will not think yourself bound to linger here, wife and no wife, making yourself miserable and others spiteful. That is not any duty you owe to your father, or to me, or to Ming-te—he has a wife who is only waiting to take your title."
She paused for a moment and then burst out again in tones of indignation:—
"Ah, why can't other people see things clearly? I know my daughter and my daughter-in-law; I know every thought in their heads. They don't want you here and yet they won't want to let you go. They have a hundred imaginary scores to pay, scores against you, scores against me. They are angry even now because I protect you. They would pull down the family rather than forgo one item of the spite they ache to visit upon you. And why?—for no cause at all except their own greed. They gloat over the thought of humbling you and shaming you. They would have done it anyway because you will be helpless and in their power and because everything that goes wrong in their lives will be your fault. But they will be harsher now because I have taken you for my friend. They will remember every bit of honest advice I gave them and then they'll say, 'The old t'ai-t'ai said this and the old t'ai-t'ai said that, but the old t'ai-t'ai is dead; what shall we do? Ah, let's go and beat the foreign hsi-fu.'"
Nancy could not help laughing at the droll accuracy of this picture. It was such as Kuei-lien might have portrayed.
"Yes, you laugh," sniffed the old woman, having joined in the laugh herself, "but it is only because you see how lifelike are my words. You can fancy your p'o-p'o, after a good cry on my grave, after calling out, 'Venerable and sacred old mother, you have left your undutiful, ignorant daughter-in-law blinded with tears, unable to eat or to sleep from her grief for you; come back and let me grovel at your feet and make amends for my ten thousand unfilial sins.' You can see her coming home, saying, 'Heaven be praised, the old hag is dead.' Eh, she will make you eat with the pigs and sleep with the dogs. No, my child, if you will stay till I am dead you must be wary, you must be clever; there are foreigners in this place; go to them and go quickly, and remember what your father wrote for you. These women, pooh! they don't want you, yet they will try to keep you here so that they can spit on you till their lips shrivel round their yellow teeth."