She frowned a trifle impatiently as she rearranged her tea-table a little. To Sung had forgotten the sugar again. Lo didn’t take sugar here—but she did. Well, she’d not take sugar today, for Lo would be here in a moment now and, if she called the servant back to bring it, probably Lo would hear and see; and she didn’t want her husband to know that To Sung had forgotten her sugar again—if he had forgotten it. It had infuriated Sên King-lo when it had happened once before. His face had blazed and he had hurled some terrible words at old To Sung, and Ruby had seen a Chinese side of her husband that she never had seen before. To Sung had listened with an expressionless face to the torrid abuse and had gone for the sugar basin when Sên had ended. But only Mrs. Sên’s insistence had saved him dismissal. “I thought you had to be deferential to every old person,” she said as she sugared her half-cold tea. “Every rule has its exception, even in China,” Sên had told her, “and I’ll have no servant of ours forget the slightest service to you.” She did not dare, for poor old To’s sake, to have Lo know that he had forgotten, or neglected, to bring her sugar again. They were wonderful servants, these Chinese house-servants of hers, and the bungalow on the Peak ran on even smoother and more noiseless wheels than her admirable London ménage had: more tempting dinners even more perfectly cooked—service swifter and surer. But now and then some personal English need of her own was overlooked. And for all the expertness and well-nigh perfection, Mrs. Sên felt that it was a chillier service than that her London servants had given her. She ignored it, tried to believe that she did not know why it was, brooded over it rather, and hid it from Lo whenever she could. It was the one small blemish in her delight in her new life in a new place, though she began now to wonder how soon people would begin to call. “Young China” has done some remarkable things to Hongkong, if it has done nothing else. Sên King-lo found Victoria less to his liking than it had been. But Ruby, who was seeing her first of the Orient now, was entranced with Hongkong. It was all so unexpected, so unlike anything she ever had seen or imagined, that its every oddity and burlesque had a charm and seemed a picture. She never really tired of the bizarre kaleidoscope of the Hongkong streets, but when she was a little satiated with the incredible medley and cram of the odd human mêlée and the narrow, sign-hung streets, she had only to rest her eyes on the boat-flecked water, or lift them for refreshment and delight that never failed to the Peak and its slopes; and always she had the home-haven of the bungalow and its hillside garden.