"Ah, my dear, the very walls have ears."
"I don't want to hear the tattle of the walls."
"Come, there's no profit in being angry. Let me finish what I have to say. Now your father has found a suitable person. He is the nephew of the t'ai-t'ai. Why do you think the t'ai-t'ai has offered her nephew for the place? Because she is fond of you? Nonsense; it is because her family is poor and needs the money your father is willing to pay."
At this moment the nurse herself appeared; Kuei-lien had contrived it so.
"Now," went on the concubine, "perhaps you dislike me too much to believe me, though I am not the enemy you think,"—her smile truly was disarming,—"but you surely will believe your old amah, and you will see that she agrees with every word when I say we Chinese do not like marriage with foreigners just as your own people look down upon marriage with Chinese. Isn't that so?"
"Yes, yes, very true words," assented the nurse.
"Why did you marry a foreigner?" asked Nancy.
"I am not a wife. I am only your father's mistress. I was poor. I had no choice."
Kuei-lien, flinging back Nancy's own words, had shamed the girl into silence.
"The family of your husband won't welcome you," persisted the concubine; "they will receive you, only because of the money you have brought, but they will hate you, hate you; no matter how talented or how beautiful you may be, they will hate you because you are different, they will hate you even more because you are talented, because you are beautiful. What do you suppose your ignorant mother-in-law will care about your talents? Faugh! she cannot read a word or write a character. She will never rest happy till you have forgotten every sentence you know, till you too are like the other cattle of the house."