"At last he died," she continued, though in rather a sulky tone, "and doctor said I might die too, I had made myself so ill, so thin with waiting on him. My bones stuck out so," she put her hands edgeways to her sides to indicate how her ribs, now remarkably well covered, had stood out from her sufferings; but remembering the fictitious blows she had recounted to me when I first met her, I was not so much stirred by her recital as I might otherwise have been.
"The boy? Oh, Treevor, he died very soon after. He caught cold from his father, I think."
"Did he die of cold and cough, too, then?" I asked.
"Yes, he coughed till he died. Oh, I cried so much when he died. My baby boy, my very big baby, I did love him so."
She blinked her glorious eyes very much as if they were full of tears at the recollection, but I did not see any fall, and she pursued her supper without any interruption of appetite.
I sat back in my chair, watching her and musing. Poor old Hop Lee! I wondered what his last moments had been like, and whether those dainty fingers had really been employed smoothing his brow, or counting his effects, at the last?
"And then what came after?" I asked. "How did it come that you were to be sold, as you said?"
"We were very poor when he died; so poor, and we owed a lot, and his brother came up from Juneau and took over the tea-shop and everything. Then he said he had offer from big Chinaman who would buy me, and he said my husband owe him lot of money, he sell me, get it back, and he sent me down to Nanine in 'Frisco to give to big Chinaman; but I told Nanine you would give more, so Nanine kept me for you."
"But how will your husband's brother get the money for you in that case?" I said.
"What a lot of questions you do ask, Treevor!" she returned sulkily. "I don't know how he will get the money. He will make Nanine give him some, I suppose. Let us forget it all, I don't want to think of that any more."
"Very well. If you have finished your supper, come over here and sit on my knee and we will forget it all, as you say."
She rose willingly and came over to me, a lovely, shimmering, Oriental vision, dainty and perfect.
"I must paint you, Suzee, some day just as you appear now and call you The Beauty of China, or something like that. You seem the joy of the East incarnate."