"You have nieces and nephews?" he asked. "Did Nancy and Edward meet them?"
Nasmith related at length his observations upon the friendship struck up between his family and their two guests; he saw how wistfully the father relished even the lesser details, nodding here and there at incidents which pleased him, repeatedly jerking out the word, "Good." He wanted to know the names of these nephews and nieces, their ages, their schooling. When he heard that they were waiting in the path below, he would not hear of their going home unwelcomed.
"No," he said, "they must not. It is near noon. They will be hungry. I will send for them—I will send Nancy herself."
The daughter came in some surprise at being summoned before the two men had gone. She remained standing at the door, not presuming of course to scan the face of her father, though she wondered if she were to be scolded before strangers.
"Nancy," said Herrick in English, "you have left three of our guests waiting outside. That is not right. We do not pay our debts in this fashion. You will go down and welcome your friends and bring them to your rooms. And tell amah, as you go, that the cook must prepare nine bowls."
The man meditated with amusement upon the shock his command had given.
"Yes," he said, "she is glad. Her eyes showed it. Ah, my friends, it had to come, it had to come. I could not keep them from making friends with their own people. I am not sorry it happened this way."
Nancy, after she had left the room, could scarcely believe that she had heard aright. To have her escapade condoned in this manner exceeded her wildest hopes. She was still dazed as she repeated her father's instructions to the amah.
"Hai, I knew it, I knew it," cried the old woman joyfully. "He is changing at last. The sight of men of his own race has made him homesick. Soon we shall all go to England, and every afternoon you will wear new dresses and go to garden parties."
Prophecy, on the amah's part, could be as endless as reminiscence. Nancy escaped on the second part of her errand and brought her friends, who were waiting restively, up the steep path to the house. It was her turn to play hostess, and she played the part with unmeasured happiness, not even regretting the lack of gramophone and piano, when she saw how instantly Helen and Elizabeth were absorbed in every curious detail of the house. Particularly were they entranced by Kuei-lien, who welcomed them at her radiant best.