of
anyone approaching at this hour," suggested Chou-hu. "What better
scheme could be devised than that I should indicate to Yan by signs
that I would honour him, and at the same time instruct him further in
the correct pose of some of the recognized attitudes, by making smooth
the surface of his face? Then during the operation I might perchance
slip upon an overripe whampee lying unperceived upon the floor; my
hand--"

"Ah-_ah_!" cried Tsae-che aloud, pressing her symmetrical fingers
against her gracefully-proportioned ears; "do not, thou dragon-headed
one, lead the conversation to such an extremity of detail, still less
carry the resolution into effect before the very eyes of this
delicately-susceptible person. Now to-morrow, after the midday meal,
she will be journeying as far as the street of the venders of woven
fabrics in order to procure a piece of silk similar to the pearl-grey
robe which she is wearing. The opportunity will be a favourable one,
for to-morrow is the weekly occasion on which you raise the shutters
and deny customers at an earlier hour; and it is really more modest
that one of my impressionable refinement should be away from the house
altogether and not merely in the inner chamber when that which is now
here passes out."

"The suggestion is well timed," replied Chou-hu. "No interruption will
then be possible."

"Furthermore," continued his wife, sprinkling upon her hair a perfumed
powder of gold which made it sparkle as it engaged the light at every
point with a most entrancing lustre, "would it not be desirable to use
a weapon less identified with your own hand? In the corner nearest to
Yan there stands a massive and heavily knotted club which could
afterwards be burned. It would be an easy matter to call the simple
Yan's attention to some object upon the floor and then as he bent down
suffer him to Pass Beyond."

"Assuredly," agreed Chou-hu, at once perceiving the wisdom of the
change; "also, in that case, there would be less--"

"_Ah_!" again cried the woman, shaking her upraised finger reprovingly
at Chou-hu (for so daintily endowed was her mind that she shrank from
any of the grosser realities of the act unless they were clothed in
the very gilded flowers of speech). "Desist, O crimson-minded
barbarian! Let us now walk side by side along the river bank and drink
in the soul-stirring melody of the musicians who at this hour will be
making the spot doubly attractive with the concord of s