"That is the proper number," said the t'ai-t'ai. "I will bring you a fourth of this sum to-morrow. Remember, you have a free hand. I will see that no one interferes with you. Don't be too hasty, don't drive the Great Man to excess; then there should be many more of these."
Calmly she bowed herself out.
CHAPTER XVII
By one shrewd stroke the t'ai-t'ai had regained Kuei-lien's faltering allegiance. She was very happy over the effects of her skill and particularly pleased at her discernment in the choice of an agent. The concubine had won more than she had lost in the admiration of her mistress. Any ordinary girl, caught thieving, as the t'ai-t'ai termed Kuei-lien's machinations, would have held stubbornly to her story and forced a final violent exposure. It took genius to give way before the inevitable. Kuei-lien had that uncommon genius. So the new alliance thrived on a mutual respect and understanding.
Kuei-lien saw that for the present at least her fortune consisted in loyalty to her mistress. She paid her dividends, as it were, by skillfully teasing Herrick into health and out of it, never letting him lose the need of her or grow sated, and inveigling him more and more easily into the gifts of money which the man granted now almost from force of habit. After the first marked change from the robustness of his former days, there were few further signs of decline. The man was sinking, but sinking imperceptibly. He ceased to see much of his children: he would see them to-morrow,—so he told himself day after day,—but each new morning there was the plea of illness.
The truth was that Herrick was afraid of death, afraid to provoke those terrible spasms of pain which he laid wrong-headedly enough to worry over Nancy's affairs; he was satisfied to stop thinking and surrender to the lulling security of the senses, to a desire for Kuei-lien's presence, which overpowered every thought of duty, every wish. So week by week his strength and his money drifted away; week by week the t'ai-t'ai and Kuei-lien buried their three fourths and one fourth of his treasure.
They could not wholly conceal their secret. There were others too intimately involved in the state of Herrick's health not to watch jealously the spoils that Hai t'ai-t'ai and Kuei-lien were taking. Nancy and Edward went their way in ignorance, but to the three other concubines it was a matter of life and death. If Herrick died, they would be the property of the t'ai-t'ai without a cent or a right of their own. Time was slipping past. Herrick seemed to have forgotten they existed; he never called for them. Even when the third and fourth concubines bore sons in quick succession, Herrick did not come. The t'ai-t'ai heaped presents upon this auspicious progeny, gave great feasts for each of the babies at the end of their first month, but the father did not appear. He was too ill. The second wife read the message of this dissimulated kindness and knew correctly that the more the mistress of the household showered them with gifts, the greater wrong she was doing them behind their backs.
At last she saw no recourse except to appeal to Nancy. The English children were the only ones who could demand access to Herrick. With great caution the second wife discarded her old policy of holding aloof from these Westerners, knowing that the t'ai-t'ai might be alive to the first hints of an uncommon friendship. She bided her time till she caught her enemies at a discreet distance, then she came out frankly, volubly, with the whole story of what Nancy's stepmother and fifth wife were managing.
"They are killing your father and robbing him, and they are going to sell you to the t'ai-t'ai's nephew."