Clear Rain laughed: “You see that she has been associating with poets. What words!”
Honeysuckle smoothed the sleeve of the silk jacket which she had lent to Winter Cherry, her dark, sleek head nodding judged assent. “It suits you,” she said. “He is very young, and quite foolish; but all men are that, at some time or other. At least, I have found them so. I remember——”
But the reminiscence was cut short by the entry of Wang Wei and another man whose tanned skin and easy, balanced stride bespoke the countryman. Before his steady eyes Winter Cherry’s face paled beneath her powder, but she restrained herself from showing by any sign that this was her father. They stood up.
Wang Wei waved a hand towards them. “We had intended a party by a stream in the moonlight after the classic manner,” he said. “I was hoping to show to you, Peng Yeh, how much you missed by living secluded in your country fastnesses, remote from the pleasures of the town. Not that I believe, myself, in these frivolities, but it amuses me to see others stretch forward an eager hand to grasp the nettle’s lovely blossom. These are the nettles. Their names are Honeysuckle, Clear Rain, and, in the middle, Foam on the Stream, who only arrived today, having been delayed by illness or family matters or I know not what.”
The three kotowed deeply without venturing to speak.
Peng Yeh inclined his head. “I am honoured and embarrassed by the warmth of your hospitality,” he said. “For me, the country amidst which I live necessitates no such opulent display of beauty. We manage, you know, with a wife and perhaps another girl or two to relieve her, a few servants and simple food. Myself, I have one son and two daughters now, since my eldest went to the family of the Emperor. So you see how ill able I am to do justice to your thoughtful providal of these sterile blooms from an exotic tree.”
Clear Rain murmured: “That would make life easy.”
Wang Wei said: “You will need a short rest, sir, before our meal. Your servants and horses are being attended to. Will you do me the honour of using my poor room?”
They moved out and down the passage.
Winter Cherry cried: “He is just the same still. He is like a plum flowering amidst wisteria—honesty amidst snow.”
“They bloom at different days of the season,” Honeysuckle said. “You behaved yourself well. And I wish that my father had trained me, as yours has, not to bite my nails. Look at that!” She held out her hands for inspection.
Wang Wei was speaking. “The Empress Wu-chao, who built the beginnings of this house, furnished this room especially for entertainments,” he said. “To me, a simple man, it is somewhat overpowering to consider the beauties and the talents which must, in the past, have gathered here.”
Liu said: “We are not so far from the noises of Chang-an as to be unable to reproduce some, at least, of the curious scenes which these walls must have seen. I am full of anticipation.”
Ah Lai whispered to Winter Cherry: “Do not forget that you have been ill and cannot partake of these so-called curious scenes. The mind of the poet Liu is not like your mind, or my mind.”
“Sh!” Winter Cherry whispered back.
Peng Yeh rose to his feet. “Alas,” he began, “that I should have to confess myself so ignorant in these matters of entertainment! Alas that to me even the famous Hunting of the Emperor’s Charms should be a largely unopened scroll, of almost unintelligible writing. Since I, sirs, am so far from being your equal in this field, could not we students have a lesson from one, at least, of so learned an assembly of experts? But, before we hear that, may I propose the healths of you all? To the honourable Wang Wei, who combines in one person literature and painting, medicine and fishing, wisdom and simplicity. To Liu Shen-hsu, whose written words bid fair to excuse his present comparative silence. To Han Im, whose outlook on life has not been jaundiced, but merely simplified. To Ah Lai, the to-be-famous nephew of the great (though absent) Li Tai-po, whose youth promises what his age will fulfil. To these three girls, who personify so charmingly skill in the arts of love, whose measured movements serve as meat for the poet’s thoughts and who themselves, in the flesh, serve cunningly the dessert for that meat. To you all!”
They all drank and Peng Yeh sat down on Wang Wei’s left.
Liu rose. “I am sure that the honourable Wang Wei would not desire to outrage his modesty by replying to such an eulogy as that which we have just heard,” he began. Then he chanted, improvising:
Ah Lai drained his cup of wine and rose to his feet
“I cannot converse in verse,” he said, “nor con the pros and cons in prose with brilliance inverse to their meaning, but I find Liu’s suggestions almost . . .” he hesitated, and knew that the wine was strong, “. . . shocking. Even my absent uncle’s past pales before them, and I, like a snail yet short of the winning-post, passed by the speedier, or an archer, plucking his erring string to hit the gold but finding the easier outer . . . that was going to be a good sentence,” he concluded, “but the beginning of it has escaped me.”
He sat down suddenly, and Honeysuckle giggled as she picked up her lute. “I shall sing you a love-song,” she said and began:
They all applauded her as the last notes of her lute put a period to the song. Clear Rain sang, without accompaniment: