“She seemed interested in me,” I said. “Or did I imagine that?”

“She is—it is because you have a reputation for being an astute businesswoman—very different from her profession of course, but she would wish to know someone who could be as successful as she is. Life has dealt similarly with you, as she would see it, although you are a world apart. Moreover you are a member of our family, and for that alone she would be interested.”

“I have rarely seen you so eager to please,” I could not resist saying.

“I must return politeness with politeness. Moreover in the past she has introduced many a mandarin to my father and me, someone who is looking for some rare statue or painting. She would let us know if someone of her acquaintance had something to dispose of. I want her to continue to do so.”

“Oh,” I said with a smile, “so it’s business after all.”

I could not forget the exquisite grace of the dancers. As for Lottie, she continued to appear bemused.

“You have like dance?” she asked.

“Yes, I liked that.”

“And all leading to the marriage.”

“I suppose it is a common theme,” I said.

Lottie did not understand that. “It was for you,” she said. “It is a sign. You marry soon.”

“It had nothing to do with me personally. It was just the theme of the dance.”

“Was for you,” she said wisely. “One year nearly up.”

“Why Lottie,” I said, “are you not content with things as they are?”

She shook her head vehemently. “Not good for house. The house ask for Master,” she said.

“Well, I am the one who must decide that, Lottie,” I reminded her.

“You decide,” she said confidently. “One year from end of Master you decide.”

Lottie seemed to have made up her mind that I would marry. I was not so sure.


* * *

As I lay in bed I looked up at the lantern swinging from the ceiling.

A thousand lanterns, I thought. Was the secret of this house in the lanterns?

It must be. In what way was this house different from any other? By the fact that it was said to contain a thousand lanterns. I looked round the room. It was not one of the largest in the house. There was the huge lantern hanging from the center and smaller ones placed at intervals round the walls. I counted twenty. Then there was the room in which Jason slept. There must have been about fifteen there.

I said to myself: The secret must be in the lanterns.

There was a pressure of business that day and I forgot about the lanterns, but I remembered that evening.

I had dined and was having coffee when Adam called. I was surprised to see him at this hour but his visit was explained by his excitement over an interesting piece he had bought that day.

“I couldn’t wait to show you,” he said, “I’m sure it’s a discovery. What do you think of it?”

He unwrapped it from a calico bag and held it reverently in his hands.

“It’s an incense burner,” I said.

“That’s so. What dynasty would you say?”

“I should imagine it’s about the second or the first century B.C. If so, I should say the Han Dynasty.”

He smiled at me warmly. He always seemed to be a different person at such times and it was on these occasions that I found myself liking him more and more.

“Where did you find it?” I asked.

“A mandarin friend of Chan Cho Lan wanted to dispose of it. She saw it and I had first chance.”

“I remember an incense burner that Sylvester was particularly fond of,” I said. My voice faltered and Adam looked at me sharply.

“It’s lonely here in this house for you,” he said.

“I’m all right. I have Jason… and Lottie is a great comfort to me.”

He looked gratified and nodded as though to remind me that he had brought her to me. “You are pale,” he went on solicitously, almost tenderly. “Do you get out enough?”

“Why yes.”

“But you can’t take walks as you did in England. Would you like to take a walk now? We’ll go round the gardens and to the pagoda. What do you think?”

“Yes,” I said, “I would like to. I’ll get a wrap.”

I went upstairs, looking in at Jason who was fast asleep and came down to Adam.

Walking was always an interesting experience at The House of a Thousand Lanterns. In the courtyards were paths over which were arches covered in climbing plants; one could walk right round the house along these paths. But I always felt it was restricting within the walls, and I liked to go through all four gates and outside to the pagoda.

This we did and I could never step inside the place without thinking of Joliffe’s waiting for me there and stepping out to catch me as I entered.

The pagoda was eerie by night. A faint shaft of light shone through the roof and fell on the face of the goddess.

“I should have loved to see it as it was when it was a temple,” I said.

Adam agreed with me.

“What a still night. It will soon be the Feast of the Dragon. On the fifth day of the fifth month he is supposed to be in a cruel mood. You’ll see some fantastic craft on the water and on land too. Dragons breathing fire, and gongs beating to divert him from his wicked purposes.”

“Jason will be thrilled. And I must say I always find these processions exciting. I suppose I shall get used to them in time… if I stay here.”

“But of course you’ll stay here. Your life will be spent here… and at home. But that’s how it is with all of us.”

“How long before you go home?” I asked.

“It depends on so much.”

“Shall you go before the year is out?”

“No,” he answered firmly.

“Doesn’t it depend on what happens then?”

“I know I shall be here for a while yet.”

I thought: He will wait until the year is up and then he will ask me to marry him.

I looked at him in the moonlight. He looked strong, serene, and a man of dignity. He was as dogmatic as he ever was but I was no longer annoyed by that in him. It amused me. I liked to pit my wits against his. In a way he was a challenge to me as Toby would never be. Toby would agree with me almost always—or at least try to see my point of view; Toby was kind and good and reliable. I was not quite sure of Adam. I only knew that the more I was with him the more he interested me.

I said suddenly: “I woke up this morning with the conviction that the secret of the house is in the lanterns.”

He turned abruptly to look at me.

“How in the lanterns?”

“I don’t know. That’s what we have to find out. It is called The House of a Thousand Lanterns. Why?”

“Presumably because the lanterns are a feature of the house.”

“A thousand lanterns,” I said. “I am going to count them. Has anyone ever counted them?”

“I don’t know. And what would be the point?”

“I don’t know that either. At least I would like to satisfy myself that the thousand are here. Will you join in the counting?”

“I will. When?”

“Tomorrow. When the house is quiet.”

“It’s a secret then?”

“I think for some reason I don’t want anyone to know I’m counting.”

“Tomorrow then,” he said, “when the house is quiet.”


* * *

It was afternoon; the house was silent; only occasionally through a window would one hear the tinkle of the wind bells. Adam and I stood together in the hall; he was holding a paper and pencil for we were determined to take careful notes. We started counting in the hall, and went into the lower rooms watching the total grow.

“I’m beginning to wonder,” said Adam, “how they can possibly have crammed a thousand into the house.”

“That’s what we will find out.”

Through the lower rooms we went; then through every room on the next floor. One of the servants saw us and must have wondered what we were doing but his expression was impassive, and we had become used to this seeming indifference to our actions.

We came to the top of the house which was used very little. There was nothing Occidental in these rooms which had retained their Chinese furnishings. There were Chinese rugs on the floor—in lovely shades of blue and almost all decorated with a dragon; there were paintings on the walls of delicate misty scenes such as originated in the paintings of the T’ang Dynasty and have been part of Chinese Art ever since.

“They are really exquisite,” I said. “We should use these rooms.”

“It’s such a big house. You would need a very large family to fill it. Perhaps,” he added, “you will have that one day.”

“Who can say?”

He came a little closer to me and for a moment I thought: Could I wholly trust Adam? I would never really know him, but that could make life exciting. There would always be discoveries to be made about him.

He seemed to sense my thoughts. He touched my hand briefly and I thought then that he was on the point of asking me to marry him.

He withdrew his hand immediately and for a moment was almost aloof. He would be thinking that it was not seemingly to mention marriage until I had passed a year in widowhood. How different from Joliffe!

“Such a big house,” I said lightly. “I wonder whether the house was built for the lanterns or the lanterns put in as an afterthought?” I hesitated for a moment, then I cried out: “Perhaps that’s the clue. Was the house built to accommodate the lanterns?”

“Whoever heard of such a thing? Who would want a thousand lanterns?”

“The builder of this house did or he wouldn’t have put them in. Adam, I am now certain that the clue to the mystery is in the lanterns.”