She was a tall woman, straight-bodied and proud. A butterfly-shaped headdress decked with the loot of a dozen jewelry stores exaggerated her height. Her gown was amethyst filigreed with gold above, a living rainbow below. The clothes were nothing!
She was—maybe I can make it clear this way. Hsiu Hsiu was as perfect a bit of feminine beauty as could be imagined. She was perfect! Then comes this queen of something—and Hsiu Hsiu’s beauty went away. She was a candle in the sun. She was still pretty—prettier than the woman in the doorway, if it came to that—but you didn’t pay any attention to her. Hsiu Hsiu was a pretty girl: this royal woman in the doorway was—I don’t know the words.
“My God!” Garthorne was whispering harshly. “I never knew it!”
“What are you doing here?” I challenged the woman.
She didn’t hear me. She was looking at Hsiu Hsiu as a tigress might look at an alley cat. Hsiu Hsiu was looking at her as an alley cat might look at a tigress. Sweat was on Garthorne’s face and his mouth was the mouth of a sick man.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated, stepping closer to Lillian Shan.
“I am here where I belong,” she said slowly, not taking her eyes from the slave-girl. “I have come back to my people.”
That was a lot of bunk. I turned to the goggling Garthorne.
“Take Hsiu Hsiu to the upper room, and keep her quiet, if you have to strangle her. I want to talk to Miss Shan.”
Still dazed, he pushed the table under the trapdoor, climbed up on it, hoisted himself through the ceiling, and reached down. Hsiu Hsiu kicked and scratched, but I heaved her up to him. Then I closed the door through which Lillian Shan had come, and faced her.