"Don't decide too hastily," said Herrick; "we'll have tiffin first."
"Thank you, but I have decided. There is no use wasting more time. You have my terms; I have yours. The situation is simple. Which one of us intends to change?"
"I don't," vowed Herrick.
"Neither do I."
With these words Nasmith picked up his helmet, bowed to his astonished host, and departed.
"I've made the attempt," said Herrick to himself, much piqued by the failure of tactics he had reckoned sure of success. "I have offered him the choice decently and fairly. If he thinks I am going to seek him out and get down on my knees, begging him to take a girl who is twice too good for him, he can wait till the Yellow River runs dry."
Some such hope had occurred to Nasmith. The knowledge that Nancy had been offered to him acted like sun and rain upon his memory of her, so that only now did he begin to realize how strong was the hold she had gained. Whatever the feeling might be, it disturbed him. In a fever of uneasiness most unusual to his orderly nature he awaited Herrick's next overture, waited till his impatience could be brooked no further. There was that last ever-disquieting threat. Would the father be fool enough or selfish or wrong-headed enough to carry it into effect? Nasmith even regretted his own judgment, his own conduct, right though he knew these had been. At last, unable to contain his distress, he walked the long road to Herrick's temple and found it vacant, with only a bleary-eyed caretaker to tell him Herrick had taken his family, son and daughter, concubine and nurse, back to Peking.
CHAPTER XIV
The departure had been as sudden, as arbitrary, as Herrick's few acts of decision usually were. The household had not recovered from the surprise of Nasmith's visit when orders came to pack. In the mysterious way by which news permeates a Chinese dwelling the subject of Herrick's conversation with his guest was common property while the two men were still debating it. Kuei-lien in great glee told Nancy that her engagement was being arranged. She was to be married to one of the light-haired men who had rescued her, the one with the little moustache under his nose. Nancy, who recognized Nasmith from Kuei-lien's mocking description, blushed a violent red and denied that any such transaction was in progress.