Upon reaching this point in her reflections, she could not control her tears, and they rolled freely down her cheeks. So much so, that when about to enter and meet her cousins, she experienced such utter lack of zest, that, while drying her tears she turned round, and wended her steps back in the direction of her apartments.
Pao-yü, meanwhile, had hurriedly got into his new costume. Upon coming out of doors, he caught sight of Lin Tai-yü, walking quietly ahead of him engaged, to all appearances, in wiping tears from her eyes. With rapid stride, he overtook her.
"Cousin Lin," he smiled, "where are you off to? How is it that you're crying again? Who has once more hurt your feelings?"
Lin Tai-yü turned her head round to look; and seeing that it was Pao-yü, she at once forced a smile. "Why should I be crying," she replied, "when there is no reason to do so?"
"Look here!" observed Pao-yü smilingly. "The tears in your eyes are not dry yet and do you still tell me a fib?"
Saying this, he could not check an impulse to raise his arm and wipe her eyes, but Lin Tai-yü speedily withdrew several steps backwards. "Are you again bent," she said, "upon compassing your own death! Then why do you knock your hands and kick your feet about in this wise?"
"While intent upon speaking, I forgot," smiled Pao-yü, "all about propriety and gesticulated, yet quite inadvertently. But what care I whether I die or live!"
"To die would, after all" added Lin Tai-yü, "be for you of no matter; but you'll leave behind some gold or other, and a unicorn too or other; and what would they do?"
This insinuation was enough to plunge Pao-yü into a fresh fit of exasperation. Hastening up to her: "Do you still give vent to such language?" he asked. "Why, it's really tantamount to invoking imprecations on me! What, are you yet angry with me!"
This question recalled to Lin Tai-yü's mind the incidents of a few days back, and a pang of remorse immediately gnawed her heart for having been again so indiscreet in her speech. "Now don't you distress your mind!" she observed hastily, smiling. "I verily said what I shouldn't! Yet what is there in this to make your veins protrude, and to so provoke you as to bedew your whole face with perspiration?"