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-"YES, it is true that I am afflicted with nervousness," said Loo Heng, his hand tapping insistently on the arm of his blackwood chair. "And your presence here does not in any way help to allay that nervousness, my dear Tung Nan Tsz. That you, at a time like this, should set all tongues wagging by coming here to see me in my own house, is in the highest degree unwise." He looked round him at the walls of the noble room in which they sat, his eye dwelling for an instant in turn on each of the magnificent examples of the ivory-carver's art, the skill of the worker in brass, in blackwood. "It has taken me a long while and much stifling of conscience to accumulate these things," he mused, as if to himself.
Tung's wife smiled as she inspected with satisfaction the almond-shaped nails on her lap before her. At a time like this men needed very delicate handling, she reflected. But her voice showed nothing of the thoughts in her mind.