While indulging in this raillery, she gave vent to tears. P'ing Erh and Hsi Jen did all they could to reason with her so as to prevent her from crying.
Her sister-in-law felt quite out of countenance. "Whether you mean to accept the proposal, or not," she consequently said, "you can anyhow speak nicely. It isn't worth the while dragging this one in and involving that one! The proverb adequately says: 'In the presence of a dwarf one mustn't speak of dwarfish things!' Here you've been heaping insult upon me, but I didn't presume to retaliate. These two young ladies have however given you no provocation whatever; and yet by referring, as you've done, in this way and that way to secondary wives how can people stand it peacefully?"
"You shouldn't speak so!" Hsi Jen and P'ing Erh quickly remonstrated. "She didn't allude to us; so don't be implicating others! Have you heard of any ladies or gentlemen who'd like to raise us to the rank of secondary wives? What's more, we two have neither father nor mother, nor brothers, within these doors, to avail themselves of our positions to act in a way contrary to right and reason! If she abuses people, let her do so; it isn't worth our while to be touchy!"
"Seeing," Yüan Yang resumed, "that the abuse I've heaped upon her head has put her to such shame that she doesn't know where to go and screen her face, she tries to egg you two on! But you two have, fortunately, your wits about you! Though quite impatient, I never started arguing the question; she it was who chose to speak just now."
Her sister-in-law felt inwardly much disconcerted, and beat a retreat in high dudgeon. But Yüan Yang so lost her temper that she still went on to abuse her; and it was only after P'ing Erh and Hsi Jen had admonished her for ever so long that she let the matter drop.
"What were you hiding there for?" P'ing Erh then asked Hsi Jen. "We couldn't see anything of you."
"I went," Hsi Jen explained, "into Miss Quarta's rooms to see our Mr. Pao-yü, but, who'd have thought it, I got there a little too late, and they told me that he had gone home. But my suspicions were, however, aroused as I couldn't make out how it was that I hadn't come across him, and I was about to go and hunt him up in Miss Lin's apartments, when I met one of her servants who said that he hadn't been there either. Then just as I was surmising that he must have gone out of the garden, behold, you came, as luck would have it, from the opposite direction. But I dodged you, so you didn't see anything of me. Subsequently, she too appeared on the scene; but I got behind the boulder, from the back of these trees. I, however, saw that you two had come to have a chat. Strange to say, though you have four eyes between you, you never caught a glimpse of me."
Scarcely had she concluded this remark, than they heard some one else from behind, laughingly exclaim, "Four eyes never saw you, but your six eyes haven't as yet found me out!"
The three girls received quite a shock from fright; but turning round, they perceived that it was no other person than Pao-yü.
Hsi Jen smiled, and was the first to speak. "You've made me have a good search," she said. "Where do you hail from?"