She put so much inflection upon this conditional clause that the girls knew by instinct she was withholding more than she offered.
"You mean he might not let you?" exclaimed Helen tragically.
"Perhaps," Nancy confessed. "I don't know. He does not like us to go out."
"We're going to see you anyway, no matter what he says," was Elizabeth's indignant rejoinder.
Nancy smiled. She hoped they might, but she dared not encourage them. She would not let them even climb the final path to her home.
"My father doesn't see many people," she explained. "He might not like it; and if he got angry he would take us back to Peking."
Nasmith saw her point and insisted that his nieces and nephew wait while he and Beresford accompanied their guests to the house. Nancy wanted to leave all of them there, but the two men evinced a complete determination not to forsake the children one step short of their home door so she did not waste time in futile dissuasion. She did not escape from the twins, however, without embraces and kisses, a strange affectionate demonstration she schooled herself to endure, but she was glad to notice that Elizabeth and Helen made no such advances toward Edward. Plainly there were limits to the custom.
Long before the returning prodigals had reached the door, they were seen. The nurse came hobbling out to meet them and overwhelmed her foster children with tears and affectionate exclamations, making them appreciate guiltily the panic their absence had produced.
"Your father," cried the amah, "ai ya, he was like a madman! Every one of us he had out searching, even me with my poor feet; and he would not rest; he sent us out again and again and he himself walked tens of li before your messenger came and eased our hearts. Eh, we were glad! But that was late at night. I cannot tell you how we suffered before that man came. Your father wanted to give him five dollars. But that was not wise; it was too much. I paid him a thousand cash and he was very happy."
The amah scarcely noticed Nasmith and Beresford at first, so torrential was the greeting poured upon her two children. But when the party had reached the door and were under the smiling eyes of the servants, she grew calmer. A flutter of old remembered occasions restored her dignity at the welcome sight of these foreigners. Perhaps here was a husband for Nancy. The foreign gentlemen must come in and have tea and cakes; those were the Great Man's orders.