"You warned Immelan that it was in my mind to refuse his terms
and to open my heart to the Englishwoman, and you seduced Sen Lu to
carry your message. Yet your judgment was at fault. The hand of Immelan
was stretched out against me, and me alone. But for my knowledge of
these things, I might have sat in the place of Sen Lu, who rightly died
in my stead. What have you to say?"
She rose to her feet. He made no movement, but his eyes watched her, and
the muscles of his body stiffened. He watched the white hand which stole
irresolutely towards the loose folds of her coat.
"You ask me why I have done this," she cried, "but you already know. It
is because you have taken this woman with the blue eyes into your
heart."
"If that were true," he answered, "of what concern is it to others? I am
Prince Shan."
"You sent me here to breathe this cursed western atmosphere," she
moaned, "to drink in their thoughts and see with their eyes. I see and
know the folly of it all, but who can escape? Jealousy with us is a
disease. Over there one creeps away like a hurt animal because there is
nothing else. Here it is different. The Frenchwoman, the Englishwoman,
who loses her lover--she does not fold her hands. She strikes, she is a
wronged creature. I too have felt that."
Her master sat for long in silence.
"You are right," he pronounced. "I shall try to be just. You are a
person of small understanding. You have never made any effort to live
with your head in the clouds.
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