military, will be within your reach. No doubt, also, your business in
Peking will be quickly brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and there
can be no objection, therefore, to our settling the preliminaries now,
and then, on your return from the capital, we can celebrate the wedding.
This will give rest and composure to my cousin's mind, which is now like
a disturbed sea, and will not interfere, I venture to think, with the
affair which calls you to Peking."

As King proceeded, Jasmine felt that her difficulties were on the
increase. It was impossible that she should explain her position in
full, and she had no sufficient reason at hand to give for rejecting the
proposal made her, though, as the same time, her annoyance was not small
at having such a matter forced upon her at a moment when her mind was
filled with anxieties. "Then," she thought to herself, "there is ahead
of me that explanation which must inevitably come with Wei; so that,
altogether, if it were not for the deeply rooted conviction which I have
that Tu will be mine at last, when he knows what I really am, life would
not be worth having. As for this inn-proprietor, if he has so little
delicacy as to push his cousin upon me at this crisis, I need not have
any compunction regarding him; so perhaps my easiest way of getting out
of the present hobble will be to accept his proposal and to present the
box of precious ointment handed me by Wei for my sister to this ogling
love-sick girl." So turning to King, she said:

"Since you, sir, and your cousin have honoured me with your regard, I
dare not altogether decline your proposal, and I would therefore beg
you, sir, to hand this," she added, producing the box of ointment, "to
your honourable cousin, as a token of the bond between us, and to convey
to her my promise that, if I don't marry her, I will never marry another
lady."