The
lilies have opened."
An amah, blue-trousered, blue-jacketed, blue-aproned, cluttered across
the courtyard with two pails of steaming water.
"Good morning, Honourable One. The water for the great wife is hot and
heavy." She dropped her buckets, the water splashing over in runnels
and puddles at her feet, and stooped to smell the lilies. "It is an
auspicious day."
From the casement-window in the right balcony a voice called:
"Thou dunce! Here I am waiting already half the day. Quicker! quicker!"
It sounded elderly and querulous a voice accustomed to be obeyed and to
dominate. The great wife's face appeared a moment at the casement. Her
eyes swept over the courtyard scene--over the blooming lilies, and
Dong-Yung standing among them.
"Behold the small wife, cursed of the gods!" she cried in her high,
shrill voice. "Not even a girl can she bear her master. May she eat
bitterness all her days!"
The amah shouldered the steaming buckets and splashed across the bare
boards of the ancestral hall beyond.
"The great wife is angry," murmured the gate-keeper. "Oh, Honourable
One, shall I admit the flower-girl? She has fresh orchids."
Dong-Yung nodded. The flower girl came slowly in under the guarded
gateway. She was a country child, with brown cheeks and merry eyes. Her
shallow basket was steadied by a ribbon over one shoulder, and caught
between an arm and a swaying hip. In the flat, round basket, on green
little leaves, lay the wired perfumed orchids.
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