Pao-ch'ai was, in fact, weeping, as she covered her face, but the moment this language fell on her ear, she could scarcely again refrain from laughing. Forthwith raising her head, she sputtered contemptuously on the ground. "You can well dispense with all this sham!" she exclaimed, "I'm well aware that you so dislike us both, that you're anxious to devise some way of inducing us to part company with you, so that you may be at liberty."
Hsüeh P'an, at these words, hastened to smile. "Sister," he argued, "what makes you say so? once upon a time, you weren't so suspicious and given to uttering anything so perverse!"
Mrs. Hsüeh hurriedly took up the thread of the conversation. "All you know," she interposed, "is to find fault with your sister's remarks as being perverse; but can it be that what you said last night was the proper thing to say? In very truth, you were drunk!"
"There's no need for you to get angry, mother!" Hsüeh P'an rejoined, "nor for you sister either; for from this day, I shan't any more make common cause with them nor drink wine or gad about. What do you say to that?"
"That's equal to an acknowledgment of your failings," Pao-ch'ai laughed.
"Could you exercise such strength of will," added Mrs. Hsüeh, "why, the dragon too would lay eggs."
"If I again go and gad about with them," Hsüeh P'an replied, "and you, sister, come to hear of it, you can freely spit in my face and call me a beast and no human being. Do you agree to that? But why should you two be daily worried; and all through me alone? For you, mother, to be angry on my account is anyhow excusable; but for me to keep on worrying you, sister, makes me less then ever worthy of the name of a human being! If now that father is no more, I manage, instead of showing you plenty of filial piety, mamma, and you, sister, plenty of love, to provoke my mother to anger, and annoy my sister, why I can't compare myself to even a four-footed creature!"
While from his mouth issued these words, tears rolled down from his eyes; for he too found it hard to contain them.
Mrs. Hsüeh had not at first been overcome by her feelings; but the moment his utterances reached her ear, she once more began to experience the anguish, which they stirred in her heart.
Pao-ch'ai made an effort to force a smile. "You've already," she said, "been the cause of quite enough trouble, and do you now provoke mother to have another cry?"