But all this visiting had been as barren to Ivy as Sên realized it to be perfunctory, if not, as he suspected, actually enforced. Ivy knew no Chinese. Only one of the Chinese ladies who had called upon her knew a few words of English. Great international issues may be reconciled and solved _via_ interpreters, but feminine intercourse cannot be. The day Mrs. Sên lunched with Mrs. Eng-Hung, the English lady was provided with English cutlery; but its newness was assertive—almost a protest—and the hostess ate with chopsticks. When Mrs. Sên offered to shake hands with her Chinese women visitors, the palms that met her outstretched hand were instant and courteous but limp and irresponsive. And the husband of every Chinese woman that called even once either was under some large business obligation to Sên King-lo, or aimed to be. Several Chinese ladies whom, through their husbands, Sên had asked to call upon his wife, did not do so. Sên had little doubt that Mrs. Ma T’en-k’ai had made her sudden journey to their country home rather than do so; and Ma T’en-k’ai was deeply in debt to Sên for financial advancement. Yen F’eng-hui, who owed more to Sên King-lo’s influence than any other man in Hongkong did, frankly told King-lo that he would not permit Mrs. Yen to know an Englishwoman who had married a Chinese. He did not blame Mrs. Sên for being English, that would be absurd, since we all had be to born where the gods decree. There were English ladies in Hongkong whom he would not forbid his wife to meet, though he had no wish that she should; but he held strong and unalterable views concerning such inter-racial marriages. He hoped that his honorable friend would pardon him. Sên King-lo did more than that: he liked Yen for his upright frankness, and courage—it takes courage to defy your banker—and Sên King-lo could not condemn Yen, who had never been out of their birthland, for feeling and saying stoutly what he himself had felt as strongly scarcely four years ago, he who had traveled far and wide, from whom long foreign sojourn and alien associations inevitably had rubbed off many natural angles. So he did all he could to fill his wife’s Hongkong hours pleasantly, to keep a sour thing from her. He knew that he would be glad when they were once more on the Pacific, with their steamer’s prow turned towards the east. Lo did not notice the absence of the little sugar-basin, and he drank his Chinese tea and ate his English crumpets in high contentment. “They can’t have done you very well at the Club today at lunch,” Ivy said severely, as he passed his cup for its second refilling and helped himself to a fourth macaroon. “I had an excellent lunch,” her husband asserted, “but not at the Club. I lunched and wined at the hotel with a lady.” “And she gave you the flower in your coat!” “She did.” Mrs. Sên giggled. “You took Mrs. Yen out to lunch on the sly! Did you have a private room?”