When Han Im had gone out, the priest lit incense at the bottom of a deep bowl, so that when their eyes again were accustomed to the darkness (for even the flicker of the tinder seemed bright) it was possible to see a faint glow from this bowl. Then he said: “It would be a strange tale if the Guardian of the Secret Spring were sent on an errand, and if he succeeded in that errand; it would be strange if, like Shao Weng, he searched the thousand hills and plumbed the thousand depths, if finally he found, in the Blessed Isles, tales of a fair lady who waited for reunion with her lord. It would be stranger still if having come to a palace in the clouds, he knocked and to him came the maid named Piece of Jade, who told him that her mistress, too, had waited news from across the barrier. And most miraculous of all would it be if this lady herself came to meet him with hair disordered by her sudden joy above her white forehead, her kingfisher pins awry in her haste, and gave him messages of love, saying that she also was waiting for their union, sending her lover half of her broken hair-comb for a token, and, for proof that she was she, telling of words which they spoke together at midnight in the palace garden when seven moons and seven days had passed, words that no other lips had spoken, words that no other ears had heard.”
The high wind had dropped to little more than a rustle and the room was filled with the acrid, sweet smell of the incense. A voice called somewhere else in the building and then was silent.
The Emperor, tenseness in his voice, asked: “What were these words of recognition?”
The priest replied: “Would she not have said that they prayed to be like two one-winged birds, mating, or two limbs of the one tree?”
The Emperor cried: “These were our very words! So did we pledge each other on the day of the double seven. And the token?”
The priest replied: “A hand moves in the darkness upon the fur-lined rug. The fingers of this hand searching . . .” He turned his head towards the door and called: “Enter, and bring a lamp with you.”
In the yellow, flickering wedge of light which advanced and widened as Han Im came in with the lamp, the Emperor’s fingers closed upon the broken half of the comb.
“Leave me for a little,” he said.
Han Im observed: “I have the edict here, with brush and ink.”
The Emperor seized the brush and signed the paper. Han Im and the priest bowed once and went out.
The door shut.
The priest told Han Im: “Carry this to the boy’s room, wake him and tell him to take it to his wife. My work is done. You are, I think, of all these here the nearest to knowing the brightness of Tao. But I shall not say: ‘It would be good to meet again,’ for Tao takes no cognisance of meetings, and in Tao desire
He bowed to Han Im and went to his room.
When Ah Lai, carrying a black case with all his belongings, went into Winter Cherry’s room, she was fully dressed and the light was lit.
“I have just come from my mother,” she told him. “Mei and I are sharing the watching. She is there now with one of the old servants. I was just about to sleep. But why are you here? You have much work to do tomorrow, and must sleep soundly in order to do it well.”
He replied: “I have already slept a little. But I was awakened by Han Im. He gave me this.” He handed her the Emperor’s edict.
She read it and then looked up. “But how did he know about us?” she asked with wonder in her voice.
He said: “Such small matters as the ways of knowing of an Emperor concern us not at all now. I do not know and it is certain that you cannot know either, so what is the use of asking, my wife?”
She replied: “You are quite right. And all the while I thought that you, even, did not know how I felt.”
“Little Star,” he cried, “I have felt so ever since I first saw you, trembling a little, in the Porcelain Pavilion. So has my heart been moved since first I heard you speak, since first I saw the sorrow in your eyes lessen at the sight of me, since first I learnt how useless fingers are for tasks which are new to them.”
“It is easy to hear that you have been brought up in the company of poets,” she told him, “for even those thoughts which I think you feel are neatly marshalled into epigrams and antithesis, so that they glitter with what I trust is not a too misleading brilliance.”
“You, yourself, have been well educated,” he replied. “The wind has dropped, but there is still a draught beneath the door. I shall put a mat, thus, in front of the crack, and set this chest upon it.”
Winter Cherry hesitated. “But you cannot intend to stay here, with me, in my own room,” she objected. “My parents would be angry and turn me out.”