Pao-ch'ai was also aware of the fact, but she simply nodded her head assentingly and did not say who it was. Pao-yü likewise expressed his assent by shaking his head, but he too did not presume to speak out. Shih Hsiang-yün, however, readily took up the conversation. "He resembles," she interposed, "cousin Lin's face!" When this remark reached Pao-yü's ear, he hastened to cast an angry scowl at Hsiang-yün, and to make her a sign; while the whole party, upon hearing what had been said, indulged in careful and minute scrutiny of (the lad); and as they all began to laugh: "The resemblance is indeed striking!" they exclaimed.
After a while, they parted; and when evening came Hsiang-yün directed
Ts'ui Lü to pack up her clothes.
"What's the hurry?" Ts'ui Lü asked. "There will be ample time to pack up, on the day on which we go!"
"We'll go to-morrow," Hsiang-yün rejoined; "for what's the use of remaining here any longer—to look at people's mouths and faces?"
Pao-yü, at these words, lost no time in pressing forward.
"My dear cousin," he urged; "you're wrong in bearing me a grudge! My cousin Lin is a girl so very touchy, that though every one else distinctly knew (of the resemblance), they wouldn't speak out; and all because they were afraid that she would get angry; but unexpectedly out you came with it, at a moment when off your guard; and how ever couldn't she but feel hurt? and it's because I was in dread that you would give offence to people that I then winked at you; and now here you are angry with me; but isn't that being ungrateful to me? Had it been any one else, would I have cared whether she had given offence to even ten; that would have been none of my business!"
Hsiang-yün waved her hand: "Don't," she added, "come and tell me these flowery words and this specious talk, for I really can't come up to your cousin Lin. If others poke fun at her, they all do so with impunity, while if I say anything, I at once incur blame. The fact is I shouldn't have spoken of her, undeserving as I am; and as she's the daughter of a master, while I'm a slave, a mere servant girl, I've heaped insult upon her!"
"And yet," pleaded Pao-yü, full of perplexity, "I had done it for your sake; and through this, I've come in for reproach. But if it were with an evil heart I did so, may I at once become ashes, and be trampled upon by ten thousands of people!"
"In this felicitous firstmonth," Hsiang-yün remonstrated, "you shouldn't talk so much reckless nonsense! All these worthless despicable oaths, disjointed words, and corrupt language, go and tell for the benefit of those mean sort of people, who in everything take pleasure in irritating others, and who keep you under their thumb! But mind don't drive me to spit contemptuously at you."
As she gave utterance to these words, she betook herself in the inner room of dowager lady Chia's suite of apartments, where she lay down in high dudgeon, and, as Pao-yü was so heavy at heart, he could not help coming again in search of Tai-yü; but strange to say, as soon as he put his foot inside the doorway, he was speedily hustled out of it by Tai-yü, who shut the door in his face.