Taou Yuen did not come down to breakfast, and Gerrit stayed away from their room until her toilet must be finished. It was Sunday; and with the customary preparation for church under way William said: "I suppose you will go down to the ship?" The hidden question, the purpose of the inquiry, at once stirred into being all Gerrit's perversity. "No," he replied carelessly; "we'll go with you this morning." "That's unheard of," William exclaimed heatedly; "a woman in all her paint and perfume and outrageous clothes in North Church, with--with my family! I won't have it, do you understand." "No worse than what you see there every week," Gerrit retorted calmly; "corsets and feathers and female gimcracks. Plenty of rouge and cologne too. It will give them something new to stare at and whisper about." William Ammidon choked on his anger, and his wife laid a gloved hand on his arm. "You must make up your mind to it," she told him. "It can't hurt anyone. She is Gerrit's wife, you see." Above, the shipmaster said to Taou Yuen: "We are going to church with the family." He surveyed her clothes with a faint glimmer of amusement. She had, he saw, made herself especially resplendent as a Manchu. The long gown was straw-colored satin with black bats--a symbol of happiness--whirling on thickly embroidered silver clouds, over which she wore a sleeve coat fastened with white jade and glittering with spangles of beaten copper. Her slippers were pale rose, and fresh apple blossoms, which she had had brought from the yard, made a headdress fixed with long silver and dull red ivory pins. She smiled obediently at his announcement, and, with a fan of peacock silks and betel nuts in a pouch like a tea rose hanging by a cord from a jade button, she signified her readiness to proceed. William had gone on foot with his girls, Jeremy was seldom in church, and Rhoda, Taou Yuen beside her with Gerrit facing them, followed in the barouche. It seemed to the latter that they were almost immediately at the door of North Church. The leisurely congregation filling the walk stiffened in incredulous amazement as Gerrit handed his wife to the pavement. Rhoda went promptly forward, nodding in response to countless stupefied greetings; while Gerrit Ammidon moved on at Taou Yuen's side.