Ah! I see. Now everybody says you are
changed. Yes. She is a charming friend."
The Buddha-like face became suddenly contorted, and as suddenly grew
placid again.
"I know! I know!" Mrs. Sin muttered harshly. "Do you think I am blind!
If she had been like any of the others, do you suppose it would have
mattered to me? But you respect her--you respect. . . ." Her voice
died away to an almost inaudible whisper: "I don't believe you. You
are telling me lies. But you have always told me lies; one more does
not matter, I suppose. . . . How strong you are. You have hurt my
wrists. You will smoke with me now?"
She ceased speaking abruptly, and abruptly resumed again:
"And I do as you wish--I do as you wish. How can I keep her from it
except by making the price so high that she cannot afford to buy it? I
tell you I do it. I bargain for the pink and white boy, Quentin,
because I want her to be indebted to him--because I want her to be so
sorry for him that she lets him take her away from you! Why should you
respect her--"
Silence fell upon the drugged speaker. Sin Sin Wa could be heard
crooning softly about the Yellow River and the mountain gods who sent
it sweeping down through the valleys where the opium-poppy grows.
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