After a while this girl gave a sarcastic smile. "My idea is," she ventured, "that you, master Secundus, should really, if it so please you, go back, and come again to-morrow; and to-night, if I find time, I'll just put in a word with him!"
"What's this that you're driving at?" Pei Ming then shouted.
And the maid rejoined: "He's not even had a siesta to-day, so that he'll have his dinner at an early hour, and won't come down again in the evening; and is it likely that you would have master Secundus wait here and suffer hunger? and isn't it better than he should return home? The right thing is that he should come to-morrow; for were even by and by some one to turn up, who could take a message, that person would simply acquiesce with the lips, but would he be willing to deliver the message in for you?"
Chia Yün, upon finding how concise and yet how well expressed this girl's remarks had been, was bent upon inquiring what her name was; but as she was a maid employed in Pao-yü's apartments, he did not therefore feel justified in asking the question, and he had no other course but to add, "What you say is quite right, I'll come to-morrow!" and as he spoke, he there and then was making his way outside, when Pei Ming remarked: "I'll go and pour a cup of tea; and master Secundus, have your tea and then go."
Chia Yün turned his head round, as he kept on his way, and said by way of rejoinder: "I won't have any tea; for I've besides something more to attend to!" and while with his lips he uttered these words, he, with his eyes, stared at the servant-girl, who was still standing in there.
Chia Yün wended his steps straightway home; and the next day, he came to the front entrance, where, by a strange coincidence, he met lady Feng on her way to the opposite side to pay her respects. She had just mounted her carriage, but perceiving Chia Yün arrive, she eagerly bade a servant stop him, and, with the window between them, she smiled and observed: "Yün Erh, you're indeed bold in playing your pranks with me! I thought it strange that you should give me presents; but the fact is you had a favour to ask of me; and your uncle told me even yesterday that you had appealed to him!"
Chia Yün smiled. "Of my appeal to uncle, you needn't, aunt, make any mention; for I'm at this moment full of regret at having made it. Had I known, at an early hour, that things would have come to this pass, I would, from the very first, have made my request to you, aunt; and by this time everything would have been settled long ago! But who would have anticipated that uncle was, after all, a man of no worth!"
"Strange enough," lady Feng remarked sneeringly, "when you found that you didn't succeed in that quarter, you came again yesterday in search of me!"
"Aunt, you do my filial heart an injustice," Chia Yün protested; "I never had such a thought; had I entertained any such idea, wouldn't I, aunt, have made my appeal to you yesterday? But as you are now aware of everything, I'll really put uncle on one side, and prefer my request to you; for circumstances compel me to entreat you, aunt, to be so good as to show me some little consideration!"
Lady Feng laughed sardonically. "You people will choose the long road to follow and put me also in a dilemma! Had you told me just one word at an early hour, what couldn't have been brought about? an affair of state indeed to be delayed up to this moment! In the garden, there are to be more trees planted and flowers laid down, and I couldn't think of any person that I could have recommended, and had you spoken before this, wouldn't the whole question have been settled soon enough?"