"So she is," said the woman, "and from her window yonder she espies them, for they all put up at this inn. Hitherto she has made fun of them all, and describes their appearance and habits in the most amusing way. 'See this one,' says she, 'with his bachelor cap on and his new official clothes and awkward gait, looking for all the world like a barn-door fowl dressed up as a stork; or that one, with his round shoulders, monkey-face, and crooked legs;' and so she tells them off."
"What does she say of me, I wonder?" said Jasmine, amused.
"Of your Excellency she says that her comparisons fail her, and that she can only hope that the Fates who guided your jewelled chariot hitherward will not tantalise her by an empty vision, but will bind your ankles to hers with the red matrimonial cords."
"How can I hope for such happiness?" said Jasmine, smiling. "But please to tell your young lady that, being only a guest at this inn, I have nothing worthy of her acceptance to offer in return for her bounteous gifts, and that I can only assure her of my boundless gratitude."
With many bows, and with reiterated wishes for Jasmine's happiness and endless longevity, the woman took her leave.
"Truly this young lady has formed a most perverted attachment," said Jasmine to herself. "She reminds me of the man in the fairy tale who fell in love with a shadow, and, so far as I can see, she is not likely to get any more satisfaction out of it than he did." So saying, she took up a pencil and scribbled the following lines on a scrap of paper:
"With thoughts as ardent as a quenchless thirst, She sends me fragrant and most luscious fruit;
Without a blush she seeks a phenix guest [a bachelor]
Who dwells alone like case-enveloped lute."
After this mental effort Jasmine went to bed. Nor had her interview with the waiting-woman made a sufficient impression on her mind to interfere in any way with her sleep. She was surprised, however, on coming into her sitting-room in the morning, to meet the same messenger, who, laden with a dish of hot eggs and a brew of tea, begged Jasmine to "deign to look down upon her offerings."
"Many thanks," said Jasmine, "for your kind attention."
"You are putting the saddle on the wrong horse," replied the woman.
"In bringing you these I am but obeying the orders of Miss King, who herself made the tea of leaves from Pu-erh in Yunnan, and who with her own fair hands shelled the eggs."
"Your young lady," answered Jasmine, "is as bountiful as she is kind.
What return can I make her for her kindness to a stranger? Stay," she said, as the thought crossed her mind that the verses she had written the night before might prove a wholesome tonic for this effusive young lady, "I have a few verses which I will venture to ask her to accept."
So saying, she took a piece of peach-blossom paper, on which she carefully copied the quatrain and handed it to the woman. "May I trouble you," said she, "to take this to your mistress?"
"If," said Jasmine to herself as the woman took her departure, "Miss King is able to penetrate the meaning of my verses, she won't like them. Without saying so in so many words, I have told her with sufficient plainness that I will have nothing to say to her. But stupidity is a shield sent by Providence to protect the greater part of mankind from many evils; so perhaps she will escape."
It certainly in this case served to shield Miss King from Jasmine's shafts. She was delighted at receiving the verses, and at once sat down to compose a quatrain to match Jasmine's in reply. With infinite labour she elaborated the following:
"Sung Yuh on th' eastern wall sat deep in thought, And longed with P'e to pluck the fragrant fruit.
If all the well-known tunes be newly set, What use to take again the half-burnt lute?"
Having copied these on a piece of silk-woven paper, she sent them to Jasmine by her faithful attendant. On looking over the paper, Jasmine said, smiling, "What a clever young lady your mistress must be! These lines, though somewhat inconsequential, are incomparable."
But, though Jasmine was partly inclined to treat the matter as a joke, she saw that there was a serious side to the affair, more especially as the colours under which she was sailing were so undeniably false.
She knew well that for Sung Yuh should be read Miss King, and for P'e her own name; and she determined, therefore, to put an end to the philandering of Miss King, which, in her present state of mind, was doubly annoying to her.
"I am deeply indebted to your young lady," she said, and then, being determined to make a plunge into the morass of untruthfulness, for a good end as she believed, added, "and, if I had love at my disposal, I should possibly venture to make advances toward the feathery peach [a nuptial emblem]; but let me confess to you that I have already taken to myself a wife. Had I the felicity of meeting Miss King before I committed myself in another direction, I might perhaps have been a happier man. But, after all, if this were so, my position is no worse than that of most other married men, for I never met one who was not occasionally inclined to cry, like the boys at 'toss cash,' 'Hark back and try again.' "
"This will be sad news for my lady, for she has set her heart upon you ever since you first came to the inn; and when young misses take that sort of fancy and lose the objects of their love, they are as bad as children when forbidden their sugar-plums. But what's the use of talking to you about a young lady's feelings!" said the woman, with a vexed toss of her head; "I never knew a man who understood a woman yet."
"I am extremely sorry for Miss King," said Jasmine, trying to suppress a smile. "As you wisely remark, a young lady is a sealed book to me, but I have always been told that their fancies are as variable as the shadow of the bamboo; and probably, therefore, though Miss King's sky may be overcast just now, the gloom will only make her enjoy to-morrow's sunshine all the more."
